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hazards — strong winds, changing channel depths, rain and snow,
and the unexpected moves of rookie boaters.
Incoming waves of immigrants — first primarily from south-
ern Europe, and then eastern Europe — supplied manpower
for Baltimore’s multitude of maritime-related enterprises. The
newcomers disembarked in Locust Point, Fell’s Point and
Canton, greeted on their arrival by the stars and stripes waving
over Fort McHenry.
Between the mid-1830s and the onset of the Civil War, Baltimore
doubled its population, workforce, housing stock, street mileage
and developed area. City boundaries were extended northward to
North Avenue, south to Fort McHenry and east to Ellwood Street,
as Baltimore grew from three to 10 square miles.
By 1850, Baltimore’s population had rocketed to 169,054. Only
New York City was larger.
And there was no slack in Port traffic; a new Custom House
was built to keep pace with its growing commerce. Long Dock
along Pratt Street was crowded with watercraft selling melons,
tomatoes and potatoes. More steamboat lines were added to meet
the demand for foreign and domestic trade, but the big news in
shipbuilding circles was the 1855 launch of the
Mary Whitridge
,
the fastest clipper ever built, from the Fell’s Point yard of Hunt
and Wagner. On her maiden voyage, she set a sail speed record
which still stands, charging from the Chesapeake’s mouth to the
English Channel in 12 days, 7 hours.
Gold had been discovered in California. New orders poured
into the Port’s shipyards for fast ships, Baltimore Clippers, the only
vessels capable of making the turn around the treacherous horn
of South America and reaching the West Coast in under 100 days.
Demand for new ships occupied much of the waterfront’s
business; more than 90 percent of all America’s imports and
exports were then transported on U.S.-flag ships, so shipbuilding
boomed. Ross Winans launched his famous “cigar ship” into the
Patapsco’s middle branch in 1858. Long, round and very thin, it
was propelled by an iron wheel with flanges that encircled the
vessel at mid-ships.
Above: Frederick Douglass.
Left: Founded in 1852, the
Association of Maryland Pilots
is the oldest such organization
in America. Today’s pilots still
access moving ships via the
Jacob’s ladder from a launch.
A seminal figure in America’s 19th-century abolitionist movement, Frederick Douglass
was born into slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. During the mid-1830s, Douglass
found work at Baltimore shipyards as a caulker, stuffing a ropelike material called
‘oakum”—which had been soaked in tar —between wooden planks to make ships
watertight.
Disguised as a sailor, Douglass escaped Baltimore in 1838 and settled in Europe,
where his skill as an orator enabled him to raise money to buy his freedom. Returning
to America, he befriended Abraham Lincoln, inspiring his Emancipation Proclamation.
Isaac Myers, “born free” in Baltimore in 1835, soon became a master ship caulker
supervising caulking on clipper ships. In 1865, as racial tensions flared, shipyard
owners phased out black labor. Led by Myers, black workers
organized a joint stock company to raise funds to start their own
shipyard; Douglass was an early stockholder.
In 1868, the Chesapeake Marine Railway and Dry Dock
Company in Fell’s Point turned a tidy profit as America’s first
black-operated shipyard, hiring regardless of race.
Myers went on to become a national labor leader.
Shipyard Saga
