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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.

Advertisement: Public Dinner to Commodore Perry

Public Dinner to Commodore Perry
American and Commercial Daily Advertiser, January 24, 1814

On January 6, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry received a Congressional Gold Medal for his service at the Battle of Lake Erie. Make sure to sign up for our email newsletter to get more updates on Perry’s celebratory visit to Baltimore at the end of the January 1814.

Advertisement: 200 Dollars Reward

American and Commercial Daily Advertiser, January 22, 1814
American and Commercial Daily Advertiser, January 22, 1814

John Gadsby, the English-born proprietor of the Indian Queen Tavern, had arrived in Baltimore from Alexandria, Virginia in 1808. On September 29, 1809, traveler Samuel Breck stopped in Baltimore and stayed at the Indian Queen, observing:

“We alighted at the Indian Queen in Market street, kept by John Gadsby in a style exceeding anything that I recollect to have seen in Europe or America. This inn is so capacious that it accommodates two hundred lodgers, and has two splendid billiard-rooms, large stables and many other appendages. The numerous bed-chambers have all bells, and the servants are more attentive than in any public or private house I ever knew.”

In 1813, John Gadsby held thirty-six enslaved people at the Indian Queen to support the “attentive” service of his establishment. According to the 1813 Baltimore tax records, the value of the enslaved people held by just twelve tavern or innkeepers exceeded the total value of their real estate.

Sources: Breck, Samuel, and Horace Scudder. 2007. Recollections of Samuel Breck. Applewood Books. p. 266; Rockman, Seth. 2010. Scraping By: Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore. JHU Press. p. 112.