10_190.004 6/16/94

3) Paul H. Giddens: J. Economic History, May, 1932:

By 1771 Baltimore Merchants & their friends int he legislature had seen to it that good roads were built into Pennsylvania. It became easier for Western Pennsylvania Farmers to float their produce down the the Susquehanna to Baltimore than haul it overland to Philadelphia. "A Friend to Trade" in "An Adress to the Merchants and Inhabitants of Pennsylvania" said in 1771, "Baltimore Town in Maryland has within a few years past, carried off from this city [Philadelphia[ almost the whole trade of Frederick, York, Bedford, and Cumberland counties."

V. Opportunity strikes: Baltimore on the eve of the Revolution

A) By 1776 Baltimore had become a port town of significance with empahsis on the exporting of wheat and flour and the importing of goods for sale in Baltimore and to a lesser extend to customers on the Eastern Shore and in the Frederick region. Trade and the shipbuilding industry necessary to the continuance of that trade made the town and was the basis of its growth to this poitn. Manufacturing was beginning, but its importance lay in the future. By 1786 the Mechanics, those engaged int the clothing, construction, shipbuilding, wood, metal, leather and stone trades [see Charles G. Steffen's book on the Mechanics of Baltimore, U. Ill Press, 1984) would bne uniting with similar groups in other cities in a cry for a strong national government that would provide protection for thier livelihood, but in 1776, Baltimore still had a port0town, character that kept its distance from most of the rest of rural Maryland (Frederick Town excepted), even though its presence was such that politically it could not be ignored. In 1776 Baltimore had a population of approximately 6,000 people of whom as many as 850 were slaves. In July of 1776 it was given its first voice in provincial politics with the granting of the right to select two delegates to the legislature, a right confirmed only after a struggle in the Constitutional Convention held later that same year. Jeremiah Townley Chase, an Annapolitan, served as one of the first two delegates chosen from Baltimore City. In the Constitutional Convention he tried to

ameliorate the hostility of the rural delegates by proposing that if Baltimore grew, its representation would grow, but if Baltimore declined, its representation would cease. The rest of the delegates to the convention agreed to the second part, but insisted that if Baltimore did grow, representation would remain at two regardless of size.

B) The revolution gave an unparalleled boost to Baltimore's growth at the expense of the other port towns and transformed the community into a thriving metropolis.

[refer to "A Vigorous Spirit of Enterprise" by Thomas M. Doerflinger, 1986 who argues that cities grow on the spirit of their entrepreneurs and on the adversity that befalls their competitors.]

One of founders of Baltimore, Dr. Henry Stevenson, a man who diasavowed the Revolution and became a loyalist understood well how Baltimore benefited from the war. In 1778 he wrote that Baltimore

is the only town of consequence the Revels now possess from Boston to Charlestown. It is astonishing the commerce that is carried on there. Tis from Baltmore mostly the Revel's army is supplied with provisions and ammunition; the latter is supplied from the Rench and Dutch to two inlets on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virignia, one called Sinapuxent, the other Chingoteque, (both to the Northward of Cape Charles) and transported in small craft to Baltimore. The whole trade of the Bay centres there; tis but thirty miles from Annapolis, the rebels seat of government, ... Laying nearly centrical between the two grand Rivers, Patowmack and Susquhanah, Baltimore commands a fine Country for some hundred Miles North West." (26-239 for source

of quote)

I. Why choose the period 1776-1807?

A) Baltimore was a port town by 1776 (grain and flour export trade was its mainstay derived from the Eastern Shore and Western Maryland; graphics: Robert Alexander's map of the bay, ca. 1780, 26-239; reviewed population table placing Baltimore into the demographic context of other American port towns, from Price, see: 26-54)

B) Baltimore faced an unprecedented opportunity with the War for Independence: all competing ports were shut down

1) Younger, aggressive merchants (like the ex-Pennsylvania Merchants like the Smith and McClure families) actively supported the move towards war (Baltimore more so than the central Committee of Safety, governing Conventions in Annapolis, to the point of pushing out the former proprietary governor with the help of Virginia over the resistance of those who had taken power in Annapolis)

2) trading contacts based upon inroads made by the Smiths (noted William's European Tour) and by the Americans in the Tobacco Trade (Wallace, Davidson, and Johnson) led to Baltimore being the center of the importing of goods for the war effort:

a) was a safe harbor

b) privateers with letters of Marque could and did flourish with Baltimore as their home port

c) forced by the war to look for alternatives to London/Bristol/Glasgow

d) turned attention to France (both nationally for money and locally for sources of goods no longer available from England)_

C) period divided up into at least three phases:

1) 1776- 1781: war-time trade in which aggressive entrepreneurs took great risks

a) (privateering; cheating their European partners- cited John McClure and Smith Brothers in the French Trade: see Papenfuse, Uncertain Connection, 26-239) ends with peace in 1781; characteristic activity of merchants can be personalized by recourse to personal correspondence of merchants like John McClure: read excerpt re: Bawdy House life of his friends, from MSA SC 130-17, 5-410; in general Merchants were interested in politics for personal gain only, not civic pride, and were unscrupulous to boot: main point- The entrepreneurs who built the city did so at enormous risks to themselves and their backers and were generally unscrupulous in their pursuit of profit

b) time of rapid growth of the town, although periodic departure of towns people because of threat of British in the bay

c) what the town looked like in this period can be captured from the correspondence of people like Dr. Benjamin Rush, who came to town to attend Congress which had fled Philadelphia when the British took the city (1777) and temporarily took up residence in Baltimore: sidewalks, but no paved streets; town temporarily depopulated by threat of British, but on eve of war had ca. 5,000 people;not a very good water supply; mentions pumps and wells; accommodations not very good and expensive

noted that Rush (26-210) confirmed my estimates that there were about 1,000 houses in Baltimore in 1777; that in trying to sort out the population of Baltimore at that time we have to rely upon fragmentary census records of the town: used Fells Point Census of 1776 as an illustration (6-98) and noted that the housekeeper tally at the bottom of the page when factored against the population of Fell's point and the population as a whole gives an estimate of 1,055 houses

2) 1782-1796: period of rapid physical growth of the town at a time when there was considerable resistance to taking on the responsiblity of self-government and recognizing the responsiblities of being a city

a) reviewed the Jack Price and Doerflinger models of growth for port towns (Doerflinger supplies the growth in times of adversity model; 4-28) and asked the question "when does a village or market town become a true commercial center with a modicum of civic responsibility evident?" ; suggested that that depends upon

capital resources

trade opportunities

available entrepreneurial talent

perception of function

b) noted that rural areas were wary of the town (given only two votes in the legislature with the caveat that if population declined, so would representation) and the fathers of the town were more interested in business than civic matters including self-government

c) rapid growth of the city between 1781 and the granting of the City Charter in 1796 evident from accounts of visitors: examples drawn from the French encampments of 1781 & 1782 and from Moreau de Saint-Mery's journal in 1794

i) noted the often neglected importance of the french presence beginning with the Acadians who came in large numbers in 1755 (ca. 500?) and settled in an area which is now South Charles street known as French Town, followed the flood of black and white refugees from St. Domingo (Haiti) beginning in 1793 when L12,000 was raised for their relief; that it is the cosmopolitan flavor of the town (Germans included) that helps with the international trade contacts

ii) used map overlays and accounts of French Officers to describe the town (26-229); placed the encampment on a modern map using Professor Power's appendix (26-229 and 26-163)

iii) related the French Encampment to today's neighborhood beginning with RPD 118 (Cammarata) and then using the archaeological work done in the area of the new stadium (Babe Ruth's father's tavern, etc.14-259); explained how mapping was used (especially the Hopkins Atlas and the Sanborn insurance maps, available at the Government Documents Library, JHU, were used to show how the neighborhood changed

iv) discussed rapid physical growth of the town beginning with the 1,000 houses in 1777 and mushrooming to the 3,000 houses in 1794; noted that this phase of building was 2 1/2 story brick, while after 1794 the growth and rebuilding of the city was in larger structures accommodating more people; see graphics in 26-217; quoted General Greene in 1783 who said that 300 house were built in Baltimore in 1783 (6-98); adverse effect on the country-side in 1784: George Washington

could not get carpenters, bricklayers and masons because Baltimore was more attractive. Count by 1786 was 1900 houses;

v) discussed how the rapid growth was accomplished: returned to Thomas Harrison who invented ground rents as a developmental leasing approach to rapid development of the town. (5-408). Noted that the State of Maryland came within

a hair's breadth of being the developer of Baltimore after Harrison died in 1782. Noted that in order to pay the annual average of L329,550 war debt that Maryland accumulated between 1776 and 1783 (4-124, p. 134), in 1781 Maryland decided to confiscate property owned by British Citizens. When Harrison died his only heirs were in England. Reviewed his estate (L58,000 including annual ground rents of ca. L5,000); suggested that it might have been a different world if the State had had the income from the rapid development of the town that took place beginning in 1782, that even our current debt crisis would not be so bad or even extant, if the State had managed well Harrison's estate; but private gain triumphed over public need; the legislature, in the face of an adverse decision by the Chancery Court, passed an act excepting Harrison's property from the confiscation laws. Main point: can see how successful Harrison was in his approach to encouraging the development of the city; also 1782 marks a break with the past; Harrison and Carroll, principal owners, developers of the town west of Jones Falls die;

vi) used account of Moreau de Saint-Mery to focus on what the town was like in 1794; used overlay of George Beck's view from Howard's Park in 1796 (26-233/234); main points:

character of the city

diverse composition of population and religious beliefs

noted the 1500 Haitian emigres (500 black)

vii) political world mostly focused on national politics; city from the late 1770s on seeking protection for industry, local manufactures from a strong central government; pro-constitution long before rest of state; becomes a Jeffersonian, democratic republican city under leadership of Samuel Smith, but reluctantly turns to self-government and city related issues. By 1796 a city, but resisted perceiving of itself as one for the fifteen years prior to the triumph of the pro-charter faction

3) 1796-1807: Transformation of Baltimore from a crude port town dominated by relatively unreliable exploitive mercantile community (one that deliberately took advantage of the adversity of others) to a reasonably responsible community of merchants who finally lend their support to a m move for self government

a) mercantile expansion in this period mostly in the re-export trade which brought phenomenal capital resources to the city

b) merchants like Robert Oliver (while having their seamy, self-aggrandizing side) settle into a pattern of reliability and, in Oliver's case, hands off politics as too time consuming and not worth the effort

c) period ends with the imposition of the Embargo of 1807; Baltimore supports the embargo; largely an issue of nationalism (Roger Brown thesis) to which Baltimore merchants gave more than lip service, even if they did (like Oliver) find ways to get around the embargo when they felt they had to.

i) explained the re-export trade was simply trading with both sides during the period of the european or 'Napoleonic' wars; that Baltimore, with its ethnically diverse mercantile community and its pre-existing ties to the West Indies (meaning the French, English, and Dutch islands) was in a position geographically and in a trading networking sense, to act as good location for the landing and re-exporting of goods

ii) the end of the re-export trade meant a need to re-evaluate the commercial and developmental future of the city

II. Next week return briefly to the period 1796-1807 and to examine the characteristics of the city and the changes that take place in a world in which "Commerce is the Main Spring."02-19-92 6:15p Balt Hist 10_166.013

overlay: 26-248,

I. Earliest known contemporary printed view of Baltimore painted by George Beck, an English landscapist who was a Baltimore resident in 1796-97. May be a view from what is now Mt. Olivet Cemetery on Frederick Avenue. The stream at lower left is Gwynn's

falls. The harbor with the surrounding town is to the left of the tree. Whetstone Point, now Locust Point, is the neck of land to the right of the tree, jutting between the basin and the Middle branch of the Patapsco river. [4-1429, Lois B. Mc Cauley, Maryland Historical Prints, p. 4)

I. Commerce is the Mainspring, 1796-1829

A) Periodization of the City's History

The periodization of a city's history is not an easy task. Sherry Olson chose to end her chapter on Commerce is the Mainspring in 1821 with the enigma of Slavery and the implication that the major problem for the city and its development would be

the resolution of the African American problem.

Her quote is taken from an 1820 publication concerned with the Epidemic of yellow fever in 1819:

53: 1819 "poverty and congestion had reached new dimensions, as business depression deepened and construction declined. During the yellow fever season, an anonymous physician begged to commend to the mayor's attention the poor east of Harford Run:

Commerce is the main spring of this City. Fells Point is as it were the key thereof it is therefore important to all. But this same business which diffuses life, vigor and activity to the City, brings down upon this part of the city most

of these poor. They have all been, more or less, directly or indirectly engaged in commerce, and have felt its depressed spirit comparatively speaking, a thousand fold more than the merchants. [1820; a series of letters relating to Yellow Fever ...]

1821: 'squeeze gut' alley; nest of houses tenanted by negroes;

B) What Olson was trying to do was to focus attention on the consequences of Commerce where there is little or no concern with the internal problems of the city on the part of the merchant community, but in doing so she misses the underlying rhythm of change and development with in the city.

In trying to understand when a Port town becomes a city and what the predominant pattern of development and change is within that transformation, especially as it relates to place like Baltimore, you need to ask yourself what makes a city.

I would argue that it is probably the consciousness of being one, of being different from the surrounding country-side, needing problems solved, services provided that simply are not pressing issues in the rural world,

issues that are being addressed and discussed by some common forum of communication: newspapers, or weekly journals; By 1800 Baltimore had at least two principal newspapers and in 18ll Hezekiah Niles founded his Weekly Register (A National weekly that concerned itself with local issues)

issues that encompass self-government (resisted in Baltimore until 1796)

Issues that encompass a commonality of interest different from the rest of the State (a bias towards a strong National Government that protects trade and manufacturing;) and results in an adherence first to the Federalist Party until in Maryland it is dominated by rural interests, and then the Democratic=Republican Party of Jefferson which, by 1800, offers a larger measure of political freedom and a larger base of participation in the political process (universal white manhood suffrage) than do the Federalists

addresses issues like education (the first efforts at educational reform, as advocated by Noah Webster of Webster's speller and dictionary fame, were tried out on a not two receptive Baltimore)

addresses issues like abolition of slavery (more effective in Baltimore City than anywhere else in the State

What we are looking at in Baltimore by 1800 is a fundamental change in american society that is focused in the transformation of port town to cities. While Olson is correct in highlighting the resistance, even within the port town to the change (the business of trade is trade, not caring for the poor or seeking better streets for the town), the change takes place none the less, and it the timing of how and why that change takes place that is most important to our understanding of the evolution of the city.

C) the urban phenomena that before the American Revolution existed in isolation and were largely independent of the country side (Boston and Philadelphia were the least so, Baltimore, New York, Annapolis, Charleston, more so); The urban phenomena that before the 1790s had little influence on or with (especially in a legislative sense the majority of people who live in rural areas and the majority of people who governed,

by 1800 was beginning to address its internal problems and making its mark on the country-side,

in the Chesapeake Bay Region, by the 1820s Baltimore replace London as the metropolitan influence (with some competition from Richmond)

at the same time Baltimore began to come to grips with its own problems:

[26-258]

by paving streets (adding sidewalks)

improving the water supply

creating markets

assuming some social responsibility (Maryland Hospital begins in the 1790s on the site of what is now Hopkins Hospital()

[use map from Barnes of Varle that shows Baltimore in 1800 with Market, hospital circled; 26-248]

D) By 1800, America's cities, but especially Baltimore, are no longer merely the port towns that Jacob Price describes; the characteristics of colonial city life that historians like Carl Bridenbaugh and Gary B. Nash (Urban Crucible, 1979) examine, are transformed from superficial signs of a civic consciousness into the reality of a true urban landscape that were now more than a mere pass through for immigrants and temporary stopping place for imports and exports.

The City was beginning to be a force to reckoned with (for good or for evil) in the political, economic, social world of the country. 26-255; keep in mind that the majority of Americans then and perhaps now, did not like the urban presence and wished that it would go away: The rest of Maryland wanted the business and prosperity that Baltimore represented but did not want its problems. From 1776 elements within the city and without did not want the urban presence to grow into a political power of its own. The ambivalence of the rural elite towards the city is perhaps best expressed by an analogy of a protective brother concerned about the seduction of a younger sister, the sister representing the rest of Maryland and the seducer representing the city. By 1788 Jeremiah Townley Chase had done a lot for Baltimore city, although he had left the city for Annapolis in the late 1770s. He had represented the city in the constitutional convention of 1776 and had argued persuasively that

Baltimore deserved representation in the General Assembly, although he had also failed in convincing the Convention to let the representation grow as the city grew. [quote 26-274]

II. The underlying rhythm of change for Baltimore from 1800, when the city first had to begin to cope with the consequences of one white man one vote in the city, to the 1830s when at last the city gained entre into the political decision-making circles of state government by constitutional reform that gave it increasing representation in State government based upon population, the city passed through three distinct periods of change:

A) 1790s-1807; Commercial elements concerned mostly with the re-export trade dominate the city and keep its attention largely focused on the European, west indian trade

B) 1807-1816: european wars draw the nation into their conflict; Baltimore's re-export merchants withdraw from trade and invest in

1) changing the city's orientation towards manufacturing and exploiting the internal markets of the nation with considerable disagreement on what those markets can and should be;

2) solving the problems of the city through philanthropy and through increasing local governments' role in solving city issues with tax dollars

C) 1816-1830 when new avenues of development must be pursued for the survival of the city as a commercial entity:

growth of manufacturing

investment in internal improvements to access internal markets III. Lets begin with an overview of the city and its population

A) in 1800,

B) in 1818 when the city boundaries were expanded,

C) and finally ca. 1830.

A) Best description of Baltimore in 1800 is from Scharf, chronicles of Baltimore, published in 1874 which reprints this account of the city at about the time that Warner and Hanna published Charles Varle's map of the city

1) quote from Scharf, 26-248

B) In the 1816 the legislature pulled a fast one on Baltimore and increased its geographical size while not allowing it any increase in representation in the General Assembly (quote from Niles Register)

26-41

Niles (1817):

The Legislature, at its late sitting, passed an act to annex the Precincts, as they were called, to the City of Baltimore, against the consent of nine-tenths, perhaps, of the people of both. By this procedure the CITY acquires a population of 16 or 17,000 souls; and still has only TWO members in the house of delegates -- a FORTIETH part of the power of legislation, and a FIFTH, if not a FOURTH, of all the white persons in whole state.

The mere ADDITION thus made to Baltimore city for population or value of property, is far greater than that of any one of seven or eight of the counties of the state, and equal, or superior, to that of two several pairs of united counties--But each COUNTY

sends FOUR members to the legislature. THIS IS MARYLAND REPRESENTATION.

Of the political motives that led to this procedure, it does not belong to this work to say any thing.

Griffith (1824-1830):

At the session of 1816, the limits of the city, are extended by an act entitled "An act to enlarge the bounds of Baltimore city," including the old precincts. Those limits form a parallelogram of about three and a half miles from North to South, and four

and a half from East to West, and contains in land and water, about 10,000 acres surface, all included within the twelve wards of the city. [4-95-217/218]

Scharf, Chronicles (1874):

same as Niles, but abbreviated in the editorializing re: power of counties viz. city. [4-87-381]

Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County (1881):

pp. 61-62: follows Niles argument and includes a map of the City showing how the original tract of Coles Harbor was to the north of the present harbor (p. 62). NOTE:

according to Niles, 1817: 305;

there were 8 wards in Baltimore City. By 1820 there were 12.

Population growth, 1800-1820 from Griffith:

Year White Males White Females Other Free Slaves Total City without the Precincts:

1800: 11,294 9,606 2,771 2,843 26,514

1810 35,513

1820 39,404-40,795

City and Precincts combined:

1790: 6,422 5,503 323 1,255 13,503

1800: 31,514

1810: 19,045 17,147 5,671 4,672 46,555

1820: 23,922 24,133 10,324 3,357 62,738

1830: 30,021 31,693 14,788 4,123 80,625 Precincts only:

1800: est. 5,000 1810:

East: 4,050

West: 6,922

TOTAL: 10,971 1816:

Estimated Total: 16,000-17,000 1820:

Estimated Total: 21,942-23,334

C) Housing, population in Baltimore, 1829

In 1829 the houses in the city were: one story, 1,466; two stories, 8,189; three or more stories, 2,143; total 12,798 of which above 10,000 are of brick; [6.29 people on average per building]; In that year the city cared for 409 paupers per month out of a population of 80,625, while the county cared for 47 out of a population of 40,251.

Griffith: Appendix

D) Housing from 1800 to 1830; must remember that physical growth of a city can be both horizontal and vertical with the remaking of a city taking as much a vertical dimension as a horizontal: Mostly taken from The Architecture of Baltimore, a

Pictorial History, 1953; The print on the title page is from a view of Baltimore ca. 1847, more germane to the week after next than to next week in terms of the overall impact of what the city looked like;

[26-261, to look at housing and note the vertical developments as well as the horizontal]

IV: In the parallel careers of Robert Oliver and Samuel Smith we can see more clearly the two distinct phases Baltimore passed through from 1807- 1830:

The first phase is typified by Robert Oliver's withdrawal from trade which he completed by 1818 (analysis taken from Bruchey, 4-12), but for the rest of the city was dramatically closed by the British attack in September of 1814. A) Oliver to 1818:

Two main points,

1) merchants like oliver made a lot of money by the time of the War of 1812; war intervened; what would they do with it and what direction would they take the City in?

2) importance of the War-born demands on industrialization:

quote Bruchey, 4-12: p. 103

The war-born demand encouraged the "milling interests" of Baltimore and its environs, and the manufacture of flour increased so greatly that after 1795 it largely replaced wheat int he city's exports. By 1799 there were "fifty capital merchants mills" within 18 miles of the city. Sixteen of them were within 4 miles, and adjoining the town was a large mill capable of producing 150 barrels a day. Production time and costs had been cut by the adoption of the inventions of Oliver Evans. In history of the flour-milling industry Kuhlmann says that "The Baltimore millers seem to have been quicker than any others" to use Evans' inventions, "and the resulting advantage in costs of production doubtless helped to build up the Baltimore Mills faster than those of their competitors in the outlying area." Under conditions of increasing demand, rising prices, and lower costs, the port of Baltimore, in the judgment of a ... student, "soon became the leading flour center of America."

caveat: poor Oliver Evans never profited fully from his inventions which millers like the Ellicotts and the Tysons used freely with out much compensation to the inventor: It would not be until the late 19th century that the legal profession would hone its skills finely enough to make considerable money for itself defending the patent rights of such inventors as Edison, Bell, and Armstrong (Radio)

The War of 1812 brought an abrupt halt to the major profits to be made in the re-export trade and place the city itself in acute physical danger for the first time in its short history. Samuel Smith came to the rescue.

B) Samuel Smith and the defense of Baltimore

While many merchants intentionally stayed out of politics (Robert Oliver for one); Smith wasted several fortunes on politics and in 1814 successfully assumed command of the defenses of the City. Smith was most successful: [overlay of Smith, British attach on Baltimore, then quote:]

Cassell, p. 209:

both on land and sea the British had been repulsed. On September 14, the [British] fleet lifted its bombardment and drifted down the Patapsco to North Point where they rejoined the troop transports. Before sailing for the West Indies Cochrane released several American civilians he had been holding, including Francis Scott Key, who carried with him some lines of poetry scribbled on an envelope, the future national anthem. News of the victory at Baltimore lifted the spirits of many American still shocked by the burning of Washington. More substantively, the Battle of Baltimore, when coupled with the simultaneous victory at Plattsburg [N.Y.] on the northern frontier, improved the bargaining position of the American negotiators at the peace talks in Ghent. No longer could the British seriously contend that the United States should accept a loss of territory as the price of ending hostilities. For Samuel Smith the events of September 13-14 were the high point of his life. He had accomplished many things in sixty-two years and he would do more, but none could compare in his own mind with the successful defense of Baltimore in 1814. Unfairly, Smith's achievement has frequently been obscured by some, who have stressed the parts played by John Rodgers or George Armistead [see the monument to Armistead on the top of Federal Hill]. These an others of Smith's subordinates fought hard and well, but he was the chief architect of victory, a man whose energy, stature, and personal prestige made Baltimore capable of resisting the British. From first to last it was his triumph."

C) With the War ended, when now did Baltimore's future lie?

The spokesperson for the city, Hezekiah Niles, initially saw its greatest rival to be Boston and Boston's aggressive merchants. note the reference to Mob Town. [quote from Niles, 26-240]

1) the city looked to its internal markets for its future, first training its attention on the market to the north as drained by the Susquehanna River

2) Robert Goodloe Harper, CCC son-in-law, in 1824 took issue with the idea that just because NY and PA were completing canals that Baltimore should compete by improving the navigation of the Susquehanna; Meeting on the 20th of December, 1824 at the Exchange; Harper spoke for the equivalent of 78 pages of small type (it was no wonder that they had to break to refresh themselves); I won't read it all but will excerpt the substance of his argument which was contained in a resolution that:

the improvement of the Susquehanna not be considered more important than accessing the western trade: What was needed was "direct communication ... with all those parts of Maryland which lie in or contiguous to the Potomac, embracing the

counties of Allegany, Washington Frederick and Montgomery, and containing a population of seventy-nine thousand eight hundred and two souls; with all those parts of the state of Virginia which lie contiguous to the Ohio the Potomac and their branches, and

contain together a population of two hundred and six thousand six hundred and seventy three souls; with all those parts of Pennsylvania which lie contiguous to the Ohio and lake Erie and their waters, and contain a population of two hundred and thirty thousand one hundred and sixty; with the whole state of Ohio, the population of which amounts to five hundred and eight-one thousand four hundred and thirty-four; with all those parts of Kentucky which lie above the falls of Ohio, and contain a population of two hundred and eighty-seven thousand tow hundred and thirty-six souls; and with the whole state of Indiana, the population of which amounts to one hundred and forty-seven thousand one hundred and seventy-eight: making in the whole a population of one million five hundred and thirty-two thousand four hundred and eighty three; three times as numerous as that which is now to be found contiguous to the Susquehannah and its branches, and inhabiting a country far more extensive, equally fertile, and consequently susceptible of much greater increase in the future." p. 38

While his analysis was succinct and clearly prescient of things to come, Harper's solution was not feasible: he was arguing that a canal be built from Washington D.C. to Baltimore to complement the work then being done on the C & O Canal (one of many internal Improvements projects in that era of Canal building mania).

In three years, however, another, more viable solution to expanding the City's contacts with the western parts of the United States offered itself and the moneyed men of the city took it to their bosom with a vengeance: The Railroad: return to Robert Oliver; 26-232

D) The City turns its attention to the interior markets as well as to its own physical improvement, 1816-1830.

A) character of international trade changed: Baltimore helps foment revolution in South America; (no longer looking to Europe as much as to South America for Coffee, Sugar, Beef to which flour and manufactured commodities are exported: B) Railroad helped it to hold on to its importance as a commercial and manufacturing center by opening up the western markets just as Robert Goodloe Harper predicted could happen (so what if he was wrong about the means?)

Oliver.txt 10_166.043

Scharf Chron:

472: Robert Oliver d. 1834, 12/28 age 77

[Brugger: 145, estate was Greenmount, [later Greenmount Cemetery]; Olson, p. 36, says he acquired it ca. 1799; is on the Varle map of 1797-1800; 4-2320, Wilson on Cemeteries: "Cemetery was incorporated by act of Legislature in December 1837. Bought the Country Estate of Robert Oliver. $65,000 for 68 acres; Oliver also owned a townhouse on Gay street south of Baltimore consumed in fire of 1904; Green Mount was built in 1800 where the gothic Chapel of 1856 now stands; Oliver buried near the gatehouse, but originally buried in Westminster; grave marked by simple marble shaft.]

428: 7/4/1828 present at beg construct of B &)

3/1828 State of Md subscribed $1,000,000 for stock in B & O

444: 8/28/1830: Main Keystone of the Arches of the fine granite structure passing over the Frederick Turnpike road at Ellicott's Mills was adjusted into place by Robert Oliver. President Philip E. Thomas spoke: "The directors of the B&O RR Co., having deemed it advisable to dignify the several most important structures upon the road by the names of those citizens under whose influence and patronage this great work has been sustained, [first after Carroll, second after William Patterson, and third:] The noble edifice of which we have just witnessed the completion, I have been instructed to designate by the name of a fellow-citizen no less distinguished for his liberality, public spirit, and generous support of the magnificent enterprise in which we have embarked. This structure will accordingly hereafter be distinguished by the name of the Oliver Viaduct."

462: 12/27/1832 Robert Oliver vp of meeting in Baltimore which disapproved of the nullification resolutions of South Carolina "as tending to disturb the harmony, good faith, and impairing, if not destroying, the general prosperity." Strongly supported Jackson's stand.

463: on April 20, 1832? the first train of cars from Point of Rocks arrived in Baltimore laden with 3-400 barrels of flour.

469: 1834 funeral procession for Lafayette, Oliver Pall Bearer

[Brugger: 207, Robert Oliver supported John Stuart Skinner, American Farmer publisher, experiments in agricultural reform at his Maryland Tavern outside Baltimore; Isaac McKim helped too]

C) By 1830 the city was well on its way to securing its commercial future but the City was also on the verge of dramatic change in terms of its s political an social world. At the out set of the lecture tonight I alluded to the first major change in the

body politic with the adoption of universal manhood suffrage. In the 1830s Baltimore at last got some of the political representation it deserved in Annapolis and thus in State Affairs, at the same time that the character of city politics was also changing dramatically. The mob town that the people of Boston referred to as Baltimore became a political reality compounded by a major influx of foreigners:

as chronicled by Scharf, p. 460: 1827 1,429

1828 1,843

1829 1,581

1830, 4,100

1831 4,381

1832 7,946

The political world of the city would be in turmoil and the demands on the city fathers for the care of their citizenry would reach new and dramatic heights.

When President John Quincy Adams visited the city in 1827 he both attended the funeral of John Eager Howard, and christened the city the "Monumental city." Three years earlier, with the help of the rural districts in Maryland Adams would stole the election from the hero of New Orleans, General Andrew Jackson: Out of 33,292 votes cast (4-29, Willis p. 33) Adams won 14,692 votes and Jackson won 14,534; (Jackson got 7 out of 11 electoral votes; election in Baltimore city close; only 904 votes separated the winners from the losers as candidates for electors, George Winchester won as Jackson elector from BC)

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