Benjamin Henry Latrobe with Maximillian Godefroy, architects Baltimore, 1816-20 Italian marble Courtesy of the Maryland Commission on Artistic Property of the Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 1545 3002.abcd

Gay and Water Streets, Baltimore

A group of merchants organized the construction of the Merchants Exchange and Custom House, completed in 1820. This column, one of twelve, formed a colonnade in the great hall, where ship owners and businessmen met daily to conduct business and where Abraham Lincoln lay in state. Fielding Lucas wrote of the columns in 1832, "their design and proportion are the closest imitation of the purist Grecian model." They are in fact an adaptation of those found on the Erechtheion in Athens. After the Exchange was demolished in 1902, the columns were reused in the Annapolis Court of Appeals building. Salvaged a second time, eight columns ornament a plaza at the Robert F. Sweeney District Court Building in Annapolis.