Chesapeake Bay ° Baltimore Clippers ° Fell's Point
Industrial Baltimore, (MD)
Over the course of several centuries, Baltimore evolved from a Colonial-era port city to a thriving and dynamic city of
nearly a million people at the conclusion of World War II.
As
the city grew, a wide variety of industries were established.
Railroads, ports, manufacturing sites, and public infrastructure, such as power plants, fundamentally transformed large swaths of Baltimore's landscape. However, the second half of the 20th century saw a dramatic and often traumatic restructuring of the city's economy; individual businesses and entire industrial sectors downsized, relocated, or completely collapsed. Today many such areas of Baltimore have changed radically as abandoned manufacturing sites have been demolished or converted to new uses. Industrial Baltimore documents a vital component of the city's working past through historic photographs of the people and sites that made the city an essential economic engine of the Industrial Revolution. Over the course of several centuries, Baltimore evolved from a Colonial-era port city to a thriving and dynamic city of
nearly a million people at the conclusion of World War II.
Baltimore Harbor
Robert Keith
This newly revised and expanded edition of "Baltimore Harbor" provides a lively, heavily illustrated history of a vital American port that connects the Chesapeake Bay with the rest of the world.
Using photographs, historic illustrations, and stories, Robert Keith traces the harbor's fascinating history. An ideal hub for the bay's network of paddlewheel steamers, the working port grew quickly alongside the shipbuilding industry at Fells Point and Federal Hill. This growth continued as the nation's first public carrier railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, linked the wharves of the Patapsco River with the coal fields of Appalachia and the towns and farms of the Midwest.
Chesapeake Bay
Iowa South West, October 16, 1875
Bedford, Iowa
Some Facts About Tides.
The Alexandria (Va.) Gazette gives the following information about some peculiarities in the tides of the Chesapeake bay: A curious fact is that it is always high tide at New Point Comfort at moon rising or setting; it is always low tide at Hooper's straits at moon rising or setting, and high tide at Sandy Point when the moon rises and sets. A vessel entering the capes with a strong, fair wind at the beginning of the flood may carry the same tide to Alexandria. But a vessel leaving Alexandria for the capes will encounter these flood tides on her way, no matter how fast she may sail, and it may be she will have to contend against several more if she has a head wind. Every flood tide that enters the Chesapeake bay goes to the head ot every tide water stream or tributary of the bay, while the same ebb tide does not run more than sixty miles, and sometimes a good deal less, so that there are always two ebb tides and two flood tides in the Chesapeake bay at the same time, and sometimes three of one or the other. The flood tide runs about six hours, the ebb a little longer, so that 12 hours and 40 minutes are required for a flood tide and ebb to pass the same point. It is always flood tide in the Wicomico River on the morning of Easter and the same at Whitsuntide.
The 1855 U.S. Coast Survey's progress chart of the Chesapeake Bay below covers the Bay from the mouth of the Susquehanna River southwards as far as Cape Henry and Norfolk. It includes both the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay in full, as well as small portions of the Potomac River, Rappahannock River, York River, James River, Patapsco River, and Patuxent River. Identifies Washington D.C, Cape May, Charleston, Baltimore, Annapolis, Chestertown, Easton, Cambridge and Norfolk. This rare map was prepared under the supervision of A. D. Bache 1855 Superintendent's Report.
(Click on map image for additional views and details.)
Baltimore Clippers
The Baltimore Clipper appeared shortly after the Revolutionary War. The designers
and architects of the Baltimore Clippers looked to countries whose maritime
histories were full of conquest of speed, with and against the wind. They
considered the Phoenicians broad-beamed hulls; the Viking hulls that navigated
through Scandinavia's icy fjords; and Mediterranean war galleys which moved
with low water resistance and speed under sails. In the mid-17th century new
designs came from Holland of the first "fore-and-afters" gaff-rigged sails
which allowed for quick maneuvering, culminating in the type of vessel commonly
called a schooner.
Also of European ancestry was the sloop which was most
common in Sweden, France, and Spain. The sloop was a single masted craft with
a gaff sail and a fixed bowsprit which allowed for several triangular headsails.
Finally, from the turbulent waters of the English Channel, came tall-rigged
fishing boats from France and Britain called luggers. These boats were able
to combine the sturdiness they needed to survive in rough water with the speed
they needed to be competitive.
These
ships, and the design principles used to create them, were the backbone of
the Maryland shipbuilding industry for many years. Because of the importance of watercraft on Maryland's economy in the eighteenth
century, the Chesapeake Bay was an area of shipbuilding innovations. One such
predecessor would be the Chesapeake schooners that were mainstays of the bay
industries in the late 1700's. These boats were "sharp built", with a merchant
type or fast sailing hull for use in letter of marque service (to engage enemy
vessels and take prizes) or for privateering.
Clippers are said to have originated with the small, swift coastal packet known as the Baltimore clipper, the true clipper evolved first in the U.S. (c. 1833) and later in Britain. The basic concept of the Baltimore Clippers was first
seen in the ship Ann McKim, one of the largest and fastest clippers
ever to sail. Though no two Balitmore Clippers were ever built to the same
dimensions or specifications, they share common bonds:
A long, slim, graceful vessel with a projecting bow, a streamlined hull, and an exceptionally large spread of sail on three tall masts. Clippers carried tea from China and goldminers to California. Famous clippers included the American Flying Cloud and the British Cutty Sark. Though much faster than the early steamships (already in use when the clipper appeared), they were eventually outrun by improved steamship models and largely disappeared from commercial use in the 1870s.
All Clippers were approximately
100 feet in length from stern to bow. Baltimore Clippers had heart shaped
midsections with short keels and raking sterns. The undecorated hulls of these
ships were black, low-sided, and sharped bowed, leaving the Clippers with
minimum freeboard. Quite unlike other ships of the period, the clippers bore
no figureheads, headboards or trailboards.
A Clipper's mast was further aft on the ship just as the foremast was proportionately
taller, therefore allowing a more efficient use of sails.
Baltimore Clippers were often the ship of choice for slavers, smugglers,
and West Indian pirate craft. They also carried light cargoes, but Baltimore
Clippers received their true recognition for their role in the War of 1812
when Captain Thomas Boyle commanded the Chasseur which was able to
capture 45 British merchant ships in a five month period. Because of its impressive
performance, it returned home with its new nickname Pride of Baltimore.
Chasseur's history is illustrative of the fate of Baltimore Clippers. Just
three months after her triumphal return to Baltimore from her exploits against
the British Isles, she set sail for Canton, China. According to the super
cargo's log of the six month voyage around Africa, through the Indian Ocean,
and up the coast of Southeast Asia, she encountered gale force winds, but
sailed well. In Canton, she loaded on a cargo of tea, silk, satin, porcelain
and other high demand items for the return voyage. Despite deteriorating conditions
of the ship, she set a speed record from Canton to the Virginia Capes in 95
days. This Orient-to-America record held for 16 years until it was broken
by the clipper Atlantic in 1832. Her cargo of exotic goods sold for
a handsome profit for her owners.
Because Clippers could outsail their opponents, Baltimore Clippers were responsible
for more than 500 sinkings or seizures of British ships. But after the treaty
of Ghent, ending the War of 1812, the uses for the Baltimore Clippers declined
in number. They were still known worldwide for their usefulness in trade,
both legal and illegal, allowing merchants the speed they needed to be competitive.
They went to the West Indies with cargoes of flour and cotton, returning with
coffee and sugar.
The Baltimore Clippers faded away to be replaced by larger ships capable
of carrying greater cargoes with the same speed as that of the Clippers. In
the 1840s a new generation of fast large ships evolved that came to be known
as Yankee Clippers or simply Clipper Ships. These were three masted, full-rigged
ships, that is, they had square sails on all three masts.
Fell's Point
Fell’s Point, Baltimore’s original deep-water port, was founded in 1726 by William Fell, a shipbuilder from England.
In the late 19th century, Baltimore was second only to Ellis Island as an entry port for European immigrants, many of whom initially settled in Fell’s Point. When the Great Fire of 1904 swept through Baltimore, Fell’s Point was the only historic neighborhood that survived.
