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Northeast Corner of Fleet and Bond, (1912)
Once
a staple of the Baltimore landscape, wooden houses of the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries are now an endangered resource in Baltimore. The
neighborhood of Fell's Point is one of the few places in Baltimore where eight
of these houses are found still
fully intact and several others are covered or altered, while a few
others are scattered about the City. While many of Baltimore's wooden homes
built at the turn of the nineteenth century have disappeared with time, there
are many brick houses from this era which remain intact and in use. Thus, the
remaining late eighteenth and early nineteenth century wooden houses in Fell's
Point are a special resource which must be maintained so future generations can
understand the early history of the City of Baltimore as it relates to the way
early Americans lived in an active shipping port and what changed Baltimore
from a city of wooden houses to one of brick. Even with only a few late
eighteenth and early nineteenth century wooden houses remaining Fell's Point,
the concentration of wooden houses makes the neighborhood a central component
in understanding how wooden houses looked throughout Baltimore in that time
period.
The
history of Fell's Point explains why wooden houses were common in the early
Baltimore area and why such a relatively large quantity of wooden houses remain
in the neighborhood. In 1726, Edward Fell surveyed the area then known as
Fell's Prospect, and mentioned the presence of wooden houses in the area.[1]
In the 1763, Edward Fell laid out the town of Fell's Point on a piece of land
he inherited from his father William Fell.[2]
He used a grid system to plot his
parcel of land which lay east of Baltimore Town and south of Jonestown, on the
edge of the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River.[3]
When Edward Fell died, his wife, Ann, took over as executrix of Fell's Point
and proved a shrewd businesswoman in her efforts to turn Fell's Point into a
town rivaling nearby Baltimore Town and Jonestown.[4]
In order to promote fast and substantial development of the area, as well as
increase her profit, Ann Fell included a covenant in the sale of each Fell's
Point property which said "each new landowner in this area was required to
build within 18 months a house covering not less than 400 square feet on his
acre lot in order to secure title," thus assuring Mrs. Fell a return on the
property.[5]
This covenant stood alongside the required ground rent for each property, a
practice rooted in English tradition.[6]
Following the Revolutionary War, Baltimore Town, now the third largest town in
the new nation, took over the majority of the shipping business that previously
occurred in Annapolis. As a result of its prime location on the Baltimore
Harbor, Fell's Point developed into a "major locust of maritime activity" with
facilities such as wharves, docks and warehouses for shipping and shipbuilding.[7]
With the growth of Baltimore as a major port, Fell's Point reaped the benefits
of the late eighteenth century industrial boom and became the ship building
center of Maryland.[8] Throughout
the late eighteenth century pieces of Fell's Point became part of Baltimore
Town. When Baltimore Town was officially annexed as a city on December 13,
1796, Fell's Point was included as a part of Baltimore City. This came despite
protest from Fell's Point residents who wished to remain autonomous and
independent.[9] Despite
their interests, Fell's Point from then on was a part of the new Baltimore
City.
West Side Fells Pt. below Aliciana St. (1912)
After
its absorption into Baltimore City, Fell's Point maintained its character as it
moved into the nineteenth century. In 1798, the Fell's Point Tax Assessors
Records showed Fell's Point houses as predominantly wooden, counting 626 houses
total, two-thirds of which were wooden.[10]
That same year, the City of Baltimore passed an ordinance outlawing the
construction of new wood frame structures within the city center; however, this
ordinance did not include Fell's Point at that time.[11]
Fell's Point's early residents were of a variety of classes and occupations;
however, their residences were intermingled. Furthermore, many of the
properties in the area were owned by one person and rented out on a regular basis.[12]
When industrialization hit Baltimore in the 1830's, Fell's Point was passed
over for industrial development. Thus the "domestic scale of earlier
construction managed to survive to meet needs for small stores, shops, and
residences" in Fell's Point in the nineteenth century.[13]
By the late 19th century, most large-scale development in Fell's
Point happened along the waterfront, while inland alterations and
rehabilitations were more popular treatments for properties.[14] In 1880 there were
still over 280 wooden houses in what is now the Fell's Point Historic District
and in the surrounding areas, such as Oldtown.[15] The presence of wooden structures in
and around Fell's Point is even apparent in the 1910's photographs of T.C.
Worthington. Though it was not overhauled in favor of industrialization, the architectural
character of Fell's Point clearly shifted from a predominantly wooden town in
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to one of mostly brick,
formstone, and other materials, such as stucco and vinyl siding by the end of
the twentieth century.
The
characteristics of early wooden houses in Fell's Point demonstrate the simple
nature of the earliest residences in the Baltimore area. Early Frame Vernacular
Homes ranged from tiny, single room dwellings, to larger more spacious
structures as the area evolved from a small town to a major commercial shipping
center. The simplest houses were one to one and a half stories, two bays wide
with gable roofs, and dormer windows. Houses were often sided with beaded edge
board, a plank which protected other boards from breaking if one needed to be
removed for replacement.[16]
On the inside, there was typically one room on the ground floor and a loft or
garret for sleeping.[17]
These houses were twelve to fourteen feet wide, with small windows and panes of
green glass.[18] Larger
houses, spanning three or four bays, often had dormers and tall gambrel or broken pitch roofs to
allow for more sleeping space in the loft area or on a second floor. Between
the 1760's and 1770's the gambrel roofs fell out of favor and were converted
into a second story and a gable roof with or without dormers.[19]
Houses were often built in rows of seven, or at least as part of a pair.[20]
These styles were typical of early eighteenth century wooden houses in the
Southeast region of England.[21]
Similar wooden homes were common in early American towns such as Philadelphia,
Charleston, and throughout the New England seaport towns. In 1764 the exteriors
of "the wooden houses were reported as painted blue and white, and some
yellow," while the interiors had low ceilings, whitewashed walls and white sand
floors.[22]
Wallpaper was not used; however, chair rails were sometimes used, as well as
built in corner cabinets.[23]
Though the houses were small and simple, they provided the foundation for the
growing areas of Fell's Point, Baltimore Town, and Jonestown in the mid
eighteenth century through the early nineteenth century.
Evangelist United Christ Church
There
were numerous factors involved in the change from wood to brick constriction
throughout the region; however, one significant factor was the threat of fire
to cities in that period. Fires were a major problem for cities worldwide, and
wooden houses literally added fuel to this problem. Before 1799, half the structures
in Baltimore were wood frame.[24]
After devastating fires in London and Philadelphia, cities took precautions by
enacting ordinances prohibiting the construction of wooden buildings. In 1774
London produced the Building Act of 1774 which outlawed projecting exterior
woodwork.[25] Baltimore
followed several decades later with the "Ordinance to Prevent the Erection of
Wooden Buildings within Certain Limits of the City of Baltimore." On June 11,
1799, the City of Baltimore passed this legislation which maintained that "no
wooden mansion-house, shop, warehouse, carriage-house, stable, nor any other
wooden building, excepting fire engine houses, shall be erected..."[26]
All newly constructed buildings within the city limits had to comply or they
faced a penalty of one hundred dollars plus twenty dollars for each month the
illegal structure remained standing.[27]
Workers were also fined one dollar per day they worked on the construction of a
wooden building.[28] Such hefty
fines discouraged further construction of wooden buildings in the City of
Baltimore. Though Fell's Point did not fall into the limits placed by the 1799
ordinance, it seems likely that, given the problems with fires, they followed
the ordinance as well. It is also likely that a later ordinance expanded the 1799
boundaries to include Fell's Point. The difficulty of insuring a wooden house
against fires also contributed to the decrease in wooden houses in the
following decades.[29] Equitable Insurance
Company, a local insurer, would not insure wooden houses and placed a higher
premium on masonry houses located next to wooden ones.[30]
Thus, constructing wood buildings or living in them would be costly. Finally,
it is likely that fire was one of the causes of loss of wood frame structures
in Baltimore, as several devastating fires swept through Baltimore.
Alongside
this threat of fire came the emergence of brick in the area. Baltimore had high
quality clay available, thus Baltimore became a city of brick.[31]
Brick houses were a symbol of permanence for a growing city, "emblematic of
regularity, standardization, durability, and modernity."
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