Balti-more or Less That Way: How a Port City Moved

In my previous post about independent cities and the counties that encircle them, I wrote about how the nation’s largest independent city, Baltimore, Maryland, is surrounded by a county of the same name. Baltimore City and Baltimore County, while once united, have had separate governments since 1851. Marylanders owe the popular use of this name, as well as the name of their state, to their colonial founder.

Cecil Calvert, 2^nd Lord Baltimore, had a big life change in 1632. His father George Calvert (1^st Lord Baltimore) died that year, causing him to inherit a colonial grant in the Americas that George had just secured from King Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The colony was to be called Maryland, after the king’s wife, Queen Henrietta Maria. Before this turn of events, “Baltimore” had been a noble title in Ireland, associated with one family and principally one location. Now, it was going trans-Atlantic.

If you look at the map below, you can see the situation as rendered in the 1670s by prolific English cartographer John Speed. Settlers under Lord Baltimore’s charter first arrived in 1634, encountering the Virginia colony and gradually making their way north up the Chesapeake Bay, eventually reaching the Susquehanna River. You can clearly see these bodies of water on the map, which is oriented with west at the top, but you can also see the prominence of the Calvert family’s names on the Maryland coast. There’s Calverton County (now Calvert County), followed by Anne Arundel County and the city of Arundelton (now Annapolis), named for Cecil Calvert’s wife, Ann Arundell. (The spelling of her name was varied even not long after her lifetime, and has shifted further into the current form of the county name.) Next, we see Baltimore County, as well as Baltimore Town, and across the Susquehanna, “Baltimore M,” which may stand for “manor.” As we approach the Eastern Shore, we see Caecil M and Caecil County (now Cecil County). If you know your Maryland geography, it might immediately jump out to you that Baltimore County is not quite this large anymore – as of 1773, Harford County sits between the eastern limit of Baltimore County and western limit of Cecil County. And if, like me, you’re quite familiar with Baltimore City, you’ll see that Baltimore Town is not the Baltimore of today!

Current-day Baltimore is located at the mouth of the Patapsco River, but on this map Baltimore Town appears well north of the Patapsco by about 30 miles, between the Bush and Susquehanna Rivers. The Speed map is a prominent early example, but I’ve noticed Baltimore in the northern location on maps from our collection almost through the end of the 18^th century. (Stay tuned for another example.) As I briefly mentioned in my independent cities post, there was indeed an “Old Baltimore Town” established in 1661 at this northern site, when the seat of power in newly established (in 1659-60) Baltimore County was closer to its borders with Pennsylvania. Eventually, it lost its political importance to the “new” Baltimore Town that had grown around the economic powerhouse of the port of Baltimore, which was established in 1706. The new Baltimore Town was incorporated in 1729, became the new county seat in 1768, and was incorporated as Baltimore City in 1796.

Why did one Baltimore fade and another go gangbusters? There are probably some factors that have been lost to history which explain why, but one likely reason appears right on the maps: geographic advantage. Even on the 1670s John Speed map, before it was economically significant, the Patapsco River stands out. It’s very wide, and has several branches that stretch further inland like small fingers, which gives a visual tip-off that it would be good for shipping. This fact becomes even clearer on later maps once the area was better surveyed by locals, such as this one.

On this 1755 map of Virginia, Maryland, and other neighboring states, the Patapsco River appears not only very large but also as stretching very far west and inland. This geographic feature was crucial to Baltimore’s success, as the western-most port on the eastern seaboard. The port’s inland reach made it perfect for 18^th and 19^th-century waterfront businesses and easily accessible to export farmers in Pennsylvania and Ohio. To this day, the Port of Baltimore is one of the busiest ports in the United States and can accommodate much larger ships than many commercial ports can, as we were all reminded so poignantly after the Key Bridge collapse last year.

Oddly enough, while this 1755 map still has Baltimore in the old location – presumably from being made with information that was slightly out of date – it does foreshadow the significance of the port and new city, because it shows the location of the Baltimore Iron Works. Not only did the new Baltimore port have suitably navigable waterways for reaching inland business, the area around it was also rich in valuable natural resources for shipping back to the British Isles, such as timber from then-vast forests and something that would also make Baltimore wealthy well into the 20^th century: iron ore deposits.

The Baltimore Iron Works started in 1731, apparently early enough and with enough of a splash for it to be captured on the 1755 map, even as the mapmakers missed the news about the city’s changing location. It was the second iron works in the Maryland colony, but the first to be locally owned. It only operated until 1799, but it paved the way for a dozen other companies around Baltimore County, and in 1889, a mill at Baltimore City’s Sparrows Point began producing steel. The Sparrows Point mill was bought by Bethlehem Steel and was the largest steel producer in the world by 1954. To read more about Bethlehem Steel’s rise, fall, and impact on the local economy around Sparrows Point, see the Bethlehem Steel Legacy Project from the Baltimore Museum of Industry.

Eventually, the news about the bustling new Baltimore City did make its way to British cartographers, and its prominence quickly grew in the newly independent nation. During the American Revolution, Baltimore City was a meeting place for the Continental Congress and the home of a militia tasked with suppressing loyalist activities on the Eastern Shore. It was definitely, so to speak, on the map.

You might be wondering what became of Old Baltimore Town, and I’m only too happy to tell you. While the town faded into obscurity, the site where it had been located would become strategically significant once more. The area of the Maryland Coast between the Bush River and the Susquehanna River is now the home of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, a U.S. Army research, testing, and evaluation facility for military weapons and equipment. It was founded in 1917 and continues prominently to this day. I leave you with some photos of APG during WWII, including during a visit from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Learn More

• To learn more about Baltimore City and County history, see my previous post and its citations
• For more about the history of the Baltimore Iron Works, see this page from the Mount Clare Museum
• For more about the Bethlehem Steel Legacy Project, see this page from the Baltimore Museum of Industry
• For more about the history of Aberdeen Proving Ground, see this page from their official website