Monthly Archives: February 2014

Trustees of the Baltimore City and County Almshouse ask overseer to “be more circumspect in his purchase of provision for the poor”

Baltimore, Everyday Life, Uncategorized, , , ,

On February 5, 1814, the trustees of the Baltimore City and County Almshouse wrote to overseer John Morton, calling on him:

“to be more circumspect in his purchase of provision for the poor taking care not to have so large a proportion of bone in their meat, to have their bread attended to and well baked (particularly the indian) and to have vegetables mixed with their soup.”

While modest in some ways, the diet at the Baltimore City and County Almhouse offered greater variety and nutrition than many working people in Baltimore ate at home. Dinner included soup with an eight-ounce share of beef on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Sunday inmates ate salt pork and vegetables, Tuesdays they ate mush and molasses and on Friday they ate herring with hominy or rice. Each inmate received a pound of bread daily along with a molasses-sweetened beverage of coffee and rye served for breakfast. 

During warmer months than January, the almhouse menu was supplemented by  produce from the almshouse farm. An 1825 harvest included cabbage, tomatoes, turnips, carrots, string beans, and onions. That same year, the almshouse cows gave 4,000 gallons of milk and cream enough for 1,735 pounds of butter.

Source: Scraping By: Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore (2006), Seth Rockman, p.204.

Advertisement: PLAISTERERS.

Advertisement: PLAISTERERS.
American Commercial and Daily Advertiser, February 5, 1814.

In 1813, Edward Gray purchased a paper mill built around 1794 by Peter Mendenhal converted the mill to produce cotton yarn and cloth. By 1820, Gray employed 115 people, including 40 men and 75 children. One of the mill’s early buildings (used as a general store for workers until 1888) still stands at 169 Frederick Road.

Spencer H. Cone: “I was baptized in the Patapsco… the ice having been cut for the purpose”

Arts & Culture, Baltimore, Export, , ,

On Saturday morning, February 4th, 1814, I was baptized in the Patapsco, by Elder Lewis Richards, the ice having been cut for the purpose. It was more than a foot thick, and the spectators, with many of my old companions among them, stood on the ice within a few yards of where I was buried, and went away saying, ‘He is mad ; he’ll not stick to that long.’

A native of Princeton, New Jersey, Spencer Houghton Cone moved from Philadelphia to Baltimore in 1812. He left behind a successful career as a actor and found work as the treasurer and bookkeeper for the Baltimore American newspaper and soon, together with his brother-in-law John Norvell, decided to purchase the Baltimore Whig.

In November 1813, after months of religious reflection, Cone found a copy of the Works of John Newton at a local book auction. Inspired by John Newton (a former slave ship captain who composed the hymn Amazing Grace), Cone began to hear voices and pray intensely. One night in early February, he paced back and forth in his attic until finally he had a vision for his own salvation:

I felt as if plunged into a bath of blood divine — I was cleansed from head to foot — guilt and the apprehension of punishment were both put away ; tears of gratitude gushed from my eyes in copious streams.

Just a few days later, Spencer Cone joined the First Baptist Church and, undeterred by the cold weather, insisted on being baptized immediately in the frozen Patapsco River.

Spencer H. Cone
The life of Spencer H. Cone (1857)

John G. Jackson hires workers at Alexander McKim’s factory

Baltimore, Export, Industry & Invention, , , ,
John George Jackson, WV Regional and History Collection

On February 4, 1814, John George Jackson arrived  in Baltimore at the factory of Alexander McKim. A prominent Virginia politician, lawyer and land-owner, Jackson had recently started to develop a substantial industrial community near his home in Clarksburg, Virginia. As a keen observer of the growth and development of Baltimore and Pittsburgh, Jackson knew he could find support for his new venture in the city. At McKim’s factory, he hired skilled workers, including millwrights and blacksmiths, a joiner, saddler and other artisans. He also purchased heavy machinery for his new mill, iron furnace and tannery.

Business from men like Jackson helped Baltimore’s industrial economy expand in the early 1800s. In 1814, Robert and Alexander McKim built a new iron-works, one of the first factories in the city driven by steam power, on French Street in Old Town. Just a few days after his arrival in Baltimore, Jackson received authorization from the Virginia state legislature to convert a former grist mill on Elk Creek into a cotton and woolen mill. Virginia also granted Jackson’s request to lay out a town for his workers known as “Mile’s End” near Clarksburg. In a letter to his wife Mary Sophia Meigs, Jackson anticipated the new factory and saltworks to bring, “a pretty smart revenue to me, or it would be idle to go on the way I do.”

Learn more about John George Jackson from the West Virginia Encyclopedia or about the history of Mile’s End from this short essay written by Bob Stealy for the Connect-Clarksburg Local News.

Source: Voice of the New West: John G. Jackson, His Life and Times, Stephen W. Brown, p. 120.

There is now among us a Gallant Hero, Commodore Perry! The public spirit of Baltimore seems to have awakened to the Beams of his Glory, and shone forth yesterday in a Dinner to him A Large Company, and an excellent repast, with splendid decorations for the occasion.

Letter from Lydia Hollingsworth to cousin Ruth Hollingsworth from Baltimore, February 2, 1814. Read more stories from Oliver Perry’s visit to Baltimore.

Source: Hollingsworth to Hollingsworth, 2 February 1814, Hollingsworth Letters, Ms. 1849, Maryland Historical Society. Published in “This Time of Present Alarm”: Baltimoreans Prepare for Invasion, Barbara K. Weeks, Maryland Historical Magazine, Volume 84, Fall 1989.