Brrr! Weathering the “polar vortex” this week certainly encouraged our interest in Captain Henry Thompson’s daily journal entries on Baltimore’s weather. On January 7, 1814, Thompson recorded:

“7th –  Fine day, and having Frozen for a week past, commenc’d filling my Ice House, haul’d 21 loads today with two Carts from Herring Run  Went to Town return’d to Dinner”

Over the past week of 1814, Baltimore has been hauling ice and more:

• The Wardens of the Port of Baltimore called a public meeting for property owners around Oakum Bay: a “sink of putrefaction” where the Living Classroom Marina is located today.
• Sheriff John Chalmers advertised an auction to sell off property confiscated from James Hamilton: “A negro Woman named Ledda, with 2 small female children, slaves for life.”
• Jean Pierre Morel de Guiramand, one of many of former French colonists who fled Saint-Domingue for Baltimore at the beginning of the Haitian Revolution,received a patent a new “power loom.”

If you missed last week’s update, go back and check out  the New Year’s Day reflections of Baltimore newspapermen William Pechin and Hezekiah Niles. Find more background on the history of the city in the early 1800s and our Baltimore 1814 project.

Knowles Light Fancy Power-Loom, ca. 1787