XIX.The American Revolution

Between 1752 and 1776 the number of houses in the greater
Baltimore area had grown from twenty-five to five hundred sixty-
four. By the time of the American Revolution, newcomers --
artisans, mechanics and businessmen -- swelled the population to
over six thousand seven hundred inhabitants.  Reviews were mixed.
Some called Baltimore a "place of considerable and extensive
trade"; others "a dirty, filthy place".89

The heat of the American Revolution served as the catalyst
for further expansion of Baltimore's economy and population.
Although British sea power cut off American trade, it indirectly
benefited Baltimore's merchants. The war freed them from the
massive debt owed to English creditors and gave them a licence to
steal. Baltimore sent out nearly two hundred fifty privately
armed vessels outfitted by Baltimore merchants. Samuel Smith and
others made fortunes by capturing English merchant ships as
prizes, and by running the blockade to sell wheat and flour at
wartime prices to Spanish forces in the West Indies.90

The Revolution also stimulated the domestic market for wheat
and iron ore. Flour milling expanded with the creation of new
mills along the Jones Falls and the Gwynns Falls. The iron works
on Whetstone Point became part of the war effort. The furnace,
expropriated from the loyalist Principio Company, produced "red
thunder-bolts of war"  for the battery of guns placed on a
hastily constructed fortification. When the shooting stopped in

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