BALTIMORE.

IT was near one hundred years after the landing of
the first colonists in Maryland, and just a hundred
years ago, that the settlers on the Patapsco river ap-
plied for a law to erect a town at the head of the N.
W. Branch of that river, which, in honour of the Cal-
vert family, they named after the town of Baltimore
in Ireland, from whence their title to the peerage of
that kingdom was derived, and where they held con-
siderable estates, though born and generally resident
ia England.

Baltimore has a harbour which admits of frigates
and merchant ships of the largest class, and is secure
in all weathers, being distant about 200 miles from
sea and not much more from the Ohio river; near the
temperate latitude of 39 North, and centre of the
state and country; surrounded by land and water,
furnishing every means of subsistence, enterprize and
enjoyment required by an extensive and enlightened
population.

The first grounds laid out for the town, of sixty
acres only, was part of a tract called Cole's Harbour,
and purchased in 1729 of Mr. Carroll, the father of
the signer of the Declaration of Independence, of the
same name, at the moderate price of $5 33 per acre,
by Messrs. Tolley, Hamilton, Buckner, Walker,
Gist, Buchanan and Hammond, commissioners named
in the law.

There were as many lots as acres, though not ex-
actly regular in size or form, to be taken at the rate
of the purchase money, and only three streets, which
were those called Baltimore, running from east to
west, and Calvert and Charles, crossing the first at
right angles; and the town was extended from time to
time, nearly equal in every direction, from the inter-
section of Baltimore and Calvert-streets,