BALTIMORE-ITS MANUFACTURES, COMMERCE, ETC. Baltimore, the most southern of the four great commercial cities of the Atlantic seaboard, is located upon an estuary or small bay, which makes up for about two and a half miles on the north side of the Patapsco River, ten miles from the entrance of this river into the Chesapeake Bay, of which it is for this distance an arm. The city, by ship-channel, is about 200 miles from the ocean, and by railroad, 38 miles north-east from Washington, and 98 mile south-east from Philadelphia, lat. 39° 17′ north, and long. 76° 37' west. The situation of Baltimore, whether for foreign or internal trade, is admirable. It has a spacious and secure harbor, far inland, and is approached through a narrow and easily defended arm of the sea. Its connections with the interior are ample, railroads diverging from the city in every direction. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad extends west to Wheeling and Parkersburg on the Ohio River, forming connections at these points with the great lines of the north middle section of the Union, and through these with the railroads now being constructed to the Pacific Ocean. Pittsburgh will also be reached by this road, the branch from Cumberland being now in course of construction. The Northern Central Railroad and its connections give access to the coal fields of Pennsylvania and to the ports of Lakes Ontario and Erie. The great shore line of railroads connects the city on the one hand with Philadelphia, New York and the Eastern cities, and on the other with Washington, Alexandria, and the whole south and south-west. The Western Maryland Railroad, as its title implies, is intended to develope that portion of the State. On these great avenues of interior travel and transportation the commerce of Baltimore is entirely dependent, since by nature the site occupied by the city is hemmed around by physical difficulties which would otherwise be fatal to commercial prosperity. Baltimore has no long record. Its admirable location was for a long period unappreciated, nor was it before 1729 that the town was laid out. The part then first laid off (60 acres in extent) was the central southern portion, about the head of what is now familiarly called "the basin." Three years subsequently, in 1732, ten acres east of Jones' Falls, a part of the present, "old town," were laid out under the name of Jonestown, and in 1735 the two became united as the town of Baltimore. Up to 1752 it contained only twenty-five houses. Sixteen years later it became the County Seat, and so late as 1780 it was made a port of entry. Until that time all vessels trading to and from the port entered, cleared and obtained registers at Annapolis. None of the streets were paved before 1782, when a commencement was made on Baltimore street, from that day to this, the main street of the city. In the same year the first regular communication with Philadelphia-a line of stage coaches-was opened; and not to enlarge by tedious details, it began to assume a metropolitan appearance, and obtained an Act of Incorporation on the 31st day of December, 1796. The City Government was organized in the following year, and from the beginning of 1798 Baltimore was classed among American cities. In 1775 a census was taken at the expense of a few private individuals, and the town found to contain 564 houses and 5,934 inhabitants. Some idea of its steady rapid growth since this date may be obtained from the following returns of the federal census since taken: It is thus seen that Baltimore in the last twenty years has gained in population more than it did in the first hundred years of its existence. In 1840 it contained 102,513, and in 1860, 212,418 inhabitants. Baltimore is highly favored as a manufacturing locality. Jones' Falls and the Patapsco River afford immense water power, which is extensively employed for flouring mills, &c. Numerous cotton mills are also in operation, and in Canton and other neighborhoods iron, and other manufactures are largely engaged in. It may be well, however, to state that some of the largest of the manufactories are located beyond the city limits, but in the County of Baltimore; and hence to understand properly the true manufacturing volume belonging to the city, those of the county must be added, as in the following returns for 1860: City & County 1,310 $13,789,757 $18,068,693 15,935 5,907 $5,361,244 $29,591,758 As compared with Philadelphia, New York and Boston give the following returns: Philadelphia.. 6.298 $73,318,885 $69,562,206 60,350 30,623 $27,369,254 $135,979,777 New York. 4,375 61,212,757 90,177,038 65,483 24,721 28,481,915 159,407,369 Boston........ 1,050 14,527,800 20,254,277 14,094 4,99 6,948,229 37,681,808 The above table shows that Baltimore (city and county) produces $111 to each inhabitant, Philadelphia $240, New York $197 and Boston $212. The annual value of the products of most important manufactures of Baltimore are given in the following table for 1860: From this exhibit it will be seen that the most extensive cotton and woolen factories are beyond the city limits. The same may be said of its machine shops, furnaces, naileries, paper mills &c., and of full one half of its marble works, distilleries, &c. Several of these are largely carried on at Canton, a flourishing suburb adjacent to the city, to which the Northern Central Railroad has lately been extended. The shipping registered and enrolled, and the shipping built at the port of Baltimore in 1850, and quinquennially thereafter, are shown in the following statement: The number, nationality and tonnage of shipping entered and cleared in the foreign trade of Baltimore for the same years, is returned thus: Clearances. .... -Entrances. Total, tons. 295 70,427 143 29,161 99,588 360 121,337 189 43,790 165,127 433 139,514 184 46,963 186,417 123 35,006 182 53,460 88,466 Year endi'g-American-Foreign Total, Year endi'g-American-Foreign 1850 1855 1860 1865 The aggregate values of the exports and imports in the same years are shown in the following table: 1850. 1855 1860 1865 Exports.Total Of which in Am. vess→ Domestic. Foreign. Total. imports. Exports. Imports. $6,589,481 $377,872 $6,967,353 $6,124,201 $4,908,046 $5,529,682 9,882,918 513,766 10,395,984 7,788,949 7,336,543 6,726,518 8,804,606 196,394 9,001,600 9,784,773 5,907,939 8,073,328 11,794,546 346,491 12,141,037 4,816,454 8,308,820 2,400,989 The exports of domestic produce to foreign countries and other agricultural States, consist in the main of flour, grain and provisions, and of late years petroleum has been sent away in considerable quantities, and also some copper, of which last large quantities are smelted in the city. But the principal staple of export is tobacco, in the leaf and manufactured, which together usually make up one-half of the total value. The following table gives full details of the leaf tobacco trade for the ten years 1857-66: SHIPMENTS OF MARYLAND AND OHIO TOBACCO. 7,993 11,868 7,910 15,198 3,370 4,837 1857. 1858. 1859. 1860. 1861. 1862. 1863. 1864. 1865. 1866 .... .... 1,133 682 6,320 818 Total, hhds...... 44,259 62,368 50,957 64,841 75,590 48,439 36,193 44,378 38,560 42,215 The total inspections and exports (including Kentucky and other tobaccos,) in the same years, were as follows: The inspections of flour in Baltimore for the last five years was as fol The exports of flour from Baltimore to foreign countries chiefly to Brazil, the West Indies and the British North American Colonies for the same years were as shown in the following statement: The following table shows the receipts of wheat and other grain from The great bulk of the wheat here represented is manufactured in the city, and furnishes a flour which has a high standing in all markets. The chief returns from foreign countries are coffee from Brazil, sugar from the West Indies, and fish from British America. The imports of coffee for the last four years are represented thus: The great bulk of these imports is sent West by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad for the markets of the interior, Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis. Baltimore has been long noted for its copper smelting works, and of late years also for its iron founding. The Baltimore and Cuba Mining and Smelting Company has a capital of $1,000,000, and carries on its operations at two establishments-one at Canton on the east, and the other at Locust Point on the south side of the harbor, and these jointly work thirty-four reverberatory (including four refining) furnaces. The number of hands employed as refiners, smelters and laborers is about 300, at wages |