From the Fells Point shipyards that caulked the Baltimore Clippers to Fort McHenry, where the British naval bombardment in the War of 1812 inspired “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Baltimore’s history is entwined with seafaring men and ships. Opening on April 9 will be a new core exhibition, “Maryland’s Maritime Heritage: From Fells Point to the World, 1760-1850.”
Baltimore began as a port city, a major entrepôt for the export of tobacco and wheat in colonial times. Its thriving maritime trade influenced Maryland and America’s political destiny and the economy of the world. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Baltimore was a port of destination for successive waves of immigrants seeking a freedom.
The port figured largely in the history of the US Navy. During the Revolutionary War, the Continental navy consisted of 31 vessels. To supplement the Navy, privately-owned ships, called privateers, were outfitted as warships to attack British merchant shipping. Maryland naval hero Joshua Barney was just one of the merchant seamen who answered the call to duty. In 1785, when no longer able to maintain a Navy, the American government disposed of its naval vessels. However, by 1794, in response to attacks on merchant shipping by Algerian Corsairs in North Africa and French privateers in the West Indies, Congress approved the construction of six new frigates. By 1798, three of them were built, the Constellation here in Baltimore.
The artifacts which were brought back from the Fells Point Maritime Museum after that museum closed last fall will be re-installed on the first floor of the Thomas and Hugg building. These largely focus on the history of shipbuilding at Fells Point. Some relate to the War of 1812, whose bicentenary is fast approaching. The Maryland Historical Society is already in the planning stages for a major bicentenary exhibition. In order to do justice to the new maritime installation and these ambitious plans, we have piped on board a new Associate Curator of Maritime Collections, Carol McClees.
Many of the objects on display have thrilling stories attached to them. There is a sailor’s model of the USS Hornet. Launched as a brig by Fells Point shipbuilder William Price in 1805, the Hornet’s rig was altered in 1811 to that of a ship, by adding a third mast and making her sails relatively smaller. During the War of 1812, she sank a similarly sized but poorly trained Royal Navy brig, HMS Peacock, in February 1813. USS Hornet was blockaded in New London and New York during much of 1813 and 1814. Escaping in November 1814, she took another British brig, HMS Penguin, in March 1815. In 1829, the ship sank in a gale with the loss of all hands. All that survives is the eagle stern carving, created by an unknown Fells Point carver in 1825. It must have been removed before the ship set out on her fatal voyage, possibly during the Hornet’s 1810/11 rebuilding at the Washington Navy Yard.
In addition to ships models, the exhibition includes shipbuilding implements and nautical artifacts. Ships’ officers had to be able to sail the ship and navigate. Although chronometers were known in 1812, they were too expensive for schooners. Captains used quadrants (actually octants) to measure the height of the sun and calculate latitude, and relied on compass and log to plot their course. Charts were rare. A telescope helped in determining whether a ship was friendly, a potential prize, or someone to avoid
There are also many gorgeous paintings in the show:
The hazardous voyage of a ship in stormy seas is vividly captured in the painting of the Mary Whitridge shown on the front cover. The painting depicts her sailing to windward, shortened down to a single jib, foresail, lower main topsail, and the main spencer (the sail low at the back of the main mast). This is how she would have looked weathering the gales of Cape Horn on her trips to California. Hunt and Wagner, located on Fell Street, built the ship for Thomas Whitridge of Baltimore. A profitable blend of speed and cargo capacity, at 978 tons, Mary Whitridge was small by American clipper ship standards--a Medium Clipper size, but she was an earner. She enjoyed a thirty-year career in the trans-Pacific and New York China trades. She was also fast, setting a still-unbroken record from the Chesapeake to the English Channel in less than fourteen days. The exhibition also includes an intricate sailor’s model of the ship.
Among the paintings are portraits of ship builders and captains. Chief among them is the portrait of the man who gave Fells Point its name. Colonel Edward Fell (1736-1766), proudly shown in his uniform as a militia officer, inherited “Fell’s Prospect” from his father and, in 1763, had the land surveyed by his cousin, John Bond. Beginning in 1765, merchants and ship builders snapped up the deep water waterfront.
