USCGC (United States Coast Guard Cutter) TANEY, a National Historic Landmark, is the last surviving warship that was present and fought at the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7, 1941. Named for former Secretary of the Treasury, Roger B. Taney, the ship was one of seven cutters named for Secretaries of the Treasury.
The Treasury Class cutters represented the ultimate development of pre-World War II patrol gunboats. They were large, powerful warships designed to provide maritime law enforcement, search and rescue services, and communication and weather services on the high seas. Treasury class cutters served as convoy escorts, amphibious force flagships, shore bombardment vessels, and maritime patrol ships in World War II, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Crisis, and the Vietnam War. TANEY was built in 1936.
Following Pearl Harbor, TANEY steamed into the Atlantic for convoy duty in 1944, then returned to the Pacific in 1945 to participate in the Okinawa campaign and the occupation of Japan. After service in Vietnam she was decommissioned in 1986.
Two aging union halls on Dundalk Avenue help the story of Baltimore鈥檚 steel industry. In 1942, steel workers had won their right to unionize and established the United Steel Workers鈥 of America. When the two-story tan brick building at the corner of Dundalk Avenue and Gusryan Street was built in 1952, it served as the headquarters for USW locals 2609 and 2610. As both groups grew in size, however, local 2610 split off and constructed a modern new building next door. According to Gay Flynn, a steelworker who lived in Highlandtown and worked at Sparrow鈥檚 Point, many workers recognized the need for a union:
鈥淎 lot of people were afraid to go to the higher-ups and that, to me, is what brought the unions. They have somebody that they can go to and call that鈥檚 on their side. They always used to feel that they had nobody to talk to. We used to have a company union and a lot of people looked at that as being just that, a company union. Everybody thought that that union was for the company.鈥Once the USW started, some, like Flynn, joined to protect their jobs, whereas others saw the union as a necessary way to protect the gains that workers had made in the labor movement. , a 34-year veteran of Sparrow鈥檚 Point, former shop steward and member of the alternate grievance committee, views the USW, and other unions, this way:
鈥淲ell what I feel is, thank God for unions in America. Because it made me realize that nothing was given freely, everything was born out of struggle. A lot of people today take for [granted] that fact that you get paid vacations. That was something born out of the labor movement鈥攖hat you get paid if you off sick, that you have workers compensation laws, that you have employer provided health insurance, that you have many safeguards in place, all that were met with resistance when lobbied for that we have in place today that a lot of people think that they are etched into the fabric.鈥
The West University Parkway concrete bridge arcs over Stony Run to connect the neighborhoods of Roland Park and Tuscany-Canterbury. Hikers can follow a pedestrian pathway from Wyman Park, and walk under the bridge, which serves as a viaduct since it carries University Parkway in an arc over Stony Run, before entering the Tuscany-Canterbury neighborhood. This bridge not only connects these neighborhoods but those living in nearby residential apartments, whether the Carlyle to the Northwest, the historic Tudor Arms Apartments to the Southwest, and various apartment complexes to the Southeast, such as Hopkins House, the Carolina, and University West apartments. The viaduct also ensures easy access to John Hopkins University鈥檚 Homewood campus which sits less than a half of a mile southeast of the bridge. Etchings on the bridge's four corners indicate that it was constructed in 1908. Although a map released in 1906 seems to show that the bridge was present, this is referring to a previous steel trestle bridge, which the Olmsted Brothers saw when surveying the land a year before. The new bridge was wide enough to accommodate vehicles, trolleys, and pedestrians at the same time. One early design for the bridge was proposed by city engineer Benjamin T. Fendell. He was influenced by the ideas from the Olmsted Brothers, who recommended improvements to enhance the bridge's "architectural beauty," so that the design did not appear "weak." Ultimately, Wyatt & Nolting Architects, a partnership between architects William G. Nolting and James B.N. Wyatt, known for the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. Courthouse, and later for the Physics Building on the Homewood campus and the Garrett Building in downtown Baltimore, were chosen to complete the final design. The bridge itself was constructed by the city鈥檚 engineering department for a cost of $25,000. At the time of its construction, the Maryland and Pennsylvania (Ma & Pa) railroad had been running alongside Stony Run for four years, through the newly-created Wyman Park. The Olmsted Brothers described the latter, in their comprehensive 1904 report on development of public grounds in greater Baltimore, as a "beautiful piece of sylvan Scenery" and noted its beach trees and topography. The trustees of Johns Hopkins University, including William Wyman (which Wyman Park is named after), had deeded these lands to the city. The Ma & Pa railroad would continue to run under the viaduct until June 1958. University Parkway, which replaced Merryman Lane, a narrow country road, allowed for the construction of many buildings in the area. This included Tudor Hall in 1911, which opened for residents in 1912. It would later become the North Building of a housing cooperative named Tudor Arms. A few years after the bridge's construction, the Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins University came into existence. There were plans to incorporate the campus into the city grid. Although the campus opened for students in 1914, the full relocation of the university to that location would not be finished until two years later. Spanning almost 87 feet, this concrete arch viaduct is considered one of the most notable, and historic, bridges in the U.S., possibly for its wide span, its design, the fact it has remained intact for over 117 years, or because it connects two neighborhoods together. The bridge, according to a report prepared for the State Highway Administration in October 1995, showed the city's commitment to arch design. This is because the same year the city began construction of two other reinforced concrete bridges, one at Hollins Street, over Gwynns Run, and another at Edmondson Avenue, over Gwynns Falls. The viaduct encouraged additional residential development. The Topographical Survey Commission of Baltimore noted, in a 1912 report to city leaders, that the land required for building University Parkway was deeded without cost to the city by Johns Hopkins University and the Roland Park Company, and praised this land grant to the city for its advantages. The viaduct also helped connect the city's parks. A few years later, the city installed street lamps along the bridge. Some years after that, in 1919, curbs and sidewalks along the bridge were raised and improved. The University Parkway viaduct remains intact to this day, continuing to serve as a vital route used by residents, delivery services, emergency vehicles, and others alike. 聽
This neglected forty-two-room Victorian mansion started as the summer home of Mary Frick Garrett Jacobs, a famed Baltimore socialite and philanthropist. The property formerly belong to General John Swan, Mary Jacobs' great-grandfather, as a part of his larger Hunting Ridge estate. Mary Frick and her husband Robert Garrett stayed at their house on Mount Vernon Place between November and Easter then returned to Uplands every spring. In 1885, they hired E. Francis Baldwin, architect for the B&O Railroad, to renovate the property. Mary continued to use the property as a resident up until her death in 1936 when she left the building to the Episcopal Church.
From 1952 to 1986, the estate served as the Uplands Home for Church Women. In the early 1990s, New Psalmist Baptist Church acquired the property and incorporated the historic building into a new church. The church has been demolished but the house still stands at the center of the recently developed Uplands community.
High on a hill at 811 West Lanvale Street, behind a chain link fence and past the overgrown yard, is the grand Upton 鈥 an architectural treasure by one of Baltimore's earliest architects that has witnessed nearly 200 years of change in the Upton neighborhood that shares the building's name. In the 1830s, Baltimore lawyer David Stewart hired architect Robert Carey Long, Jr. 鈥 or so we think, no confirmation of Long as the architect has survived 鈥 to design his country villa. R. Carey (as he liked to call himself) was one of Baltimore's first professionally trained architects designing the Lloyd Street Synagogue (now part of the Jewish Museum of Maryland), the Patapsco Female Institute in Ellicott City, and the main gate of Green Mount Cemetery among more than 80 buildings across the country. Son of a Baltimore merchant who armed seven schooners and two brigantines as privateers during the Revolutionary War, Stewart became a prominent local lawyer and got involved in politics, serving a brief month as a US Senator in 1849.
The mansion is widely recognized as the last surviving Greek Revival country house in Baltimore. It remains secluded in urban West Baltimore, sitting high above the neighboring buildings and surrounded by brick and stone walls. In the mid-nineteenth century, you would have seen a grand porch with Doric columns and ironwork bearing the Stewart family crest. Inside the building, you could have observed more than a dozen marble and onyx fireplaces, a main entrance hall, a curved oak staircase, and a banquet room that was so large it has since been divided into multiple rooms. David Stewart enjoyed entertaining guests in his mansion and hosted lavish, indulgent parties there so frequently that he developed gout.
After Stewart's death in 1858, the house was purchased by the Dammann family, who owned the house for so many generations that it became known as "the old Dammann mansion." The family left in 1901, and the house found itself empty for the first time, but not the last. The mansion's next owner, musician Robert Young, took a cue from David Stewart and used the spacious and opulent mansion to host "several brilliant social affairs where hundreds of guests moved about in the spacious rooms." Young would be the last owner to use the building as a home, and his time there was short-lived 鈥 he found the house too drafty and abandoned after less than 3 years.
The commercial life of the Upton mansion began in 1930 when one of Baltimore's first radio stations, WCAO, moved into the building. Extensive alterations were made to accommodate WCAO 鈥 tall twin radio towers were installed at the edge of the property, walls were torn down and rooms partitioned off to create studios and equipment rooms. The next commercial venture in Upton came in 1947, when WCAO sold it to the Baltimore Institute of Musical Arts. Founded by Dr. J. Leslie Jones, the school was originally opened with the intentions of creating a parallel program to that offered at Peabody, a renowned music school not open to African American students at the time, and at its height in the early 1950s had over 300 students. The school eventually closed in the mid-1950s after desegregation granted black students equal access to public music schools. In 1957, the Baltimore City School System moved in to the building and used it first as the special education "Upton School for Trainable Children No. 303," and then the headquarters for Baltimore City Public School's Home and Hospital Services program. Unfortunately, Upton has sat empty since BCPS left in 2006.
Upton has a rich cultural legacy that extends beyond its use as a social hot spot, a radio station, and a school. In the 1960s, the mansion was chosen as the community namesake during an urban renewal project going on in the neighborhood at the time. As a physical landmark of the neighborhood for more than a century, the Upton mansion's name was intended to serve as "the symbol of a physical and human renewal in West Baltimore."
Despite its presence on the National Register of Historic Places and the Baltimore Landmark List, the city-owned building remains empty and unmaintained in west Baltimore. In 2009, Preservation Maryland included in on a list of the state's most endangered historic places, and the building is threatened by vandalism and neglect. Today, the mansion awaits a new owner, someone willing to restore the beautiful building to its historic potential.
Docked in the northwest corner of the harbor, the magnificent USS Constellation is a sloop-of-war, a National Historic Landmark, and the last sail-only warship designed and built by the United States Navy.
She was built in 1854, using a small amount of material salvaged from the 1797 frigate USS Constellation, which had been disassembled the year before. Before the Civil War, the Constellation was used to intercept slaving vessels. Although the U.S. had outlawed the importation of slaves in 1808, many illegal ships still tried to transport human beings to America鈥檚 shores. At the onset of the Civil War, the Constellation was involved in the U.S. Navy's first capture on May 21, 1861, when she captured a ship known as the 鈥淭riton,鈥 an illegal slave ship.
The USS Constellation remained in service for many years after the Civil War. She provided aid relief during the Irish famine, sailed in World War II as a flag ship, and for two decades was used as a training ship for the United States Navy. She was the last sailboat in the U.S. Naval Fleet.
In 1968, the ship was relocated to the Inner Harbor as part of the city鈥檚 urban renewal plan. Since then, the ship has undergone several multi-million dollar renovations, and today, the USS Constellation is open to tour. Visitors can walk all four decks, talk to crew members, and even participate in a cannon drill.
The commercial property at this location actually spans 1623 鈥 1633 E. Lombard where there were once 6 individual houses. The current structure was built in the late 1960s and served as a blood bank, ca. 1979 鈥 1988. The Baltimore American Indian Center acquired the property in 1990. The Center鈥檚 Vera Shank Daycare occupied one half of the building and had a playground in the backyard. Once a major source of income for the Indian Center, the daycare was intended to provide employment for Indian mothers and a safe environment for Indian children to learn and grow together. It was named for Vera Shank, a Quaker woman and former colleague of Indian Center co-founder, Elizabeth Locklear (Lumbee). The Native American Senior Citizens program occupied the other half of the building. 鈥淭he Seniors鈥 were a big support to the Indian Center. They held their own fundraisers, usually involving the sale of traditional foods, which they would also prepare weekly, on the premises, to eat and fellowship for hours on end. They hosted annual holiday parties and sponsored holiday meals for families of the community in need. They took trips to various destinations across the U.S. and worked together on traditional arts and crafts. The Center sold the property in 2017.
The Vickers Building represents a shift in downtown Baltimore architectural design that occurred directly after the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 and is one of the largest buildings to utilize brick as a primary material in the Central Business District. Most of the other buildings rebuilt in the area were made of stone. Masonry was popular after the Great Fire because of fireproofing concerns. Before the Great Fire, many buildings (including the old Vickers Building the new one replaced) were built in the ornate Second Empire style and featured sloping Mansard roofs and complex architectural details. This changed after the Great Fire. Architects took a more pragmatic approach to rebuilding the Central Business district and were pressured to create buildings that were cost-efficient, fire safe, and could be erected quickly. Because of all the national attention after the Fire, the city wanted to show the rest of the country its stability and they wanted to do it quickly. The permit for the Vickers Building was issued on May 19, 1904, only three months after the fire. Many of the building鈥檚 properties indicate fire-conscious planning: it鈥檚 made of brick; it has a flat roof because people believed spacious Mansard roof attics contributed to the spread of the Fire; and the bay windows recede into the building rather than protrude outwards. Not all ornamentation was eschewed from the construction of the Vickers Building. Stone lion heads adorn the topmost bay windows and a band of terra cotta runs along the street facing side of the roof. The interior is home to Werner鈥檚 Restaurant: a mainstay in the area since 1951.
Watch our on this building!
Vince鈥檚 Bar was owned by Vincent Staico. His wife, Matilda, 鈥淢s. Til,鈥 often ran the bar. Former patrons describe it as a quiet neighborhood bar, where there was seldom, if ever, fighting. Vince鈥檚 had pool tables and American Indian community members made frequent use of them. Staico sold the building to the City in 1972.
The Volcano Bar is easily the most infamous Indian bar of Baltimore鈥檚 鈥渞eservation鈥 era, but it was in existence long before the clientele was mostly Indian. It first appears in a Sun ad as the 鈥淰olcano Restaurant鈥 in 1944. In the 1960s through 1972, the Volcano was owned by Greek wwii veteran, Costas 鈥淕us鈥 Themelis, and his wife, Stella Themelis. It became almost exclusively an Indian bar during this time and had a reputation for erupting every weekend. A July 1978 Baltimore Magazine article deemed The Volcano 鈥渢he meanest bar of all time,鈥 and claims it was 鈥渢he only local bar that has ever had a patron shot off his bar stool with a bow and arrow.鈥 Mr. Themelis and his wife sold the bar to the City in 1972. It was since razed and housing occupies its former site.
1621 Bolton Street is the childhood home of Walter Sondheim, Jr.: a local business executive and civic leader who is best known for his role as president of the Baltimore City School Board as the city first sought to put an end to racially segregated school following the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. In their decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." In contrast to many southern school districts, Sondheim led the school board to immediately respond to the ruling with a new policy that, at least officially, allowed white and black students to attend any school regardless of their race. Leaders in Baltimore鈥檚 African American community had lobbied for more resources for the city鈥檚 black students as far back as the 1860s. In 1867, for example, the Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People successfully petitioned the city to provide funds for the education of black children. And, in 1882, Everett J. Waring, Reverend Harvey Johnson, and others succeeded in pushing the school board to establish the first 鈥渃olored鈥 high school for black students, which went on to become the school we know today as Frederick Douglas High School. In the early 1950s, Baltimore鈥檚 NAACP and Urban League began advocating to integrate Polytechnic Institute, particularly the school鈥檚 elite engineering program. Their efforts culminated in a contentious hearing at the school board in 1952 where among others, Thurgood Marshall battled against the Poly Alumni Association and others to integrate the school. With Walter Sondheim as the chair, board members voted five to three to integrate, and fifteen African American students entered the program at Poly that fall. Despite this victory, attempts to integrate Baltimore鈥檚 all-female Western High School and Mergenthaler School of Printing (better known locally as 鈥淢ervo鈥) failed in 1953. Efforts of challenging these decisions were put on hold as Marshall and others from the NAACP knew the case from Topeka, Kansas, Brown v. Board of Education, would be heading to the U.S. Supreme Court. When the unanimous Brown decision came out in May 1954, Baltimore already had years of advocacy and attention to the issue of desegregation. While Baltimore did not experience the violence that desegregation sparked in other cities, the city never successfully integrated its schools. In the fall of 1954, six white students enrolled in formerly all-black schools and sixteen hundred black students enrolled in formerly all-white schools. By 1960, African American students became the majority in the school system. In 1961, 75% of the city鈥檚 schools were either 90% black or 90% white. In 1973, the U.S. Office of Civil Rights threatened to withhold federal funds charging that the city was not doing enough to integrate the schools.
The Walters Art Museum, so named for William Walters and his son Henry, began as a private art collection. Born in 1819, William was the first of eight children. At age 21 he moved to Baltimore and entered the wholesale liquor trade. He prospered in this and in his dealings with the East Coast railroads. He married Ellen Harper and had three children. The eldest died in early childhood, leaving only Henry and Jennie. In 1861, the family moved away from the Civil War in the U.S. to Paris. There, William and Ellen began collecting European art. Shortly thereafter, Ellen died of pneumonia.
The spring of 1874 brought the family back to Baltimore. William began allowing the public into his private collection every Wednesday in April and May. He donated the 50-cent admission fee to the Baltimore Association for the Improvement in the Condition of the Poor. His collection focused heavily on modern European paintings and Asian art. Upon his death in 1894, the collection passed to his son Henry.
Henry followed in his father鈥檚 footsteps as a railway magnate and art collector. His success in business made him one of the wealthiest men in nineteenth century America. He greatly expanded his collection of art with a $1 million purchase of 1,700 pieces, the first of its kind in American art collecting, from priest Don Marcello Massarenti. The purchase contained Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities, Medieval and Renaissance bronzes, ivories and furniture, as well as a wealth of Italian paintings from the 12th through 18th centuries. This would come to be the second largest collection of Italian paintings in North America (the first being the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York).
However, the public doubted the authenticity of the collection he purchased after the self-portrait of Raphael turned out to be a forgery. Unknown to the public, Henry had purchased the collection with several forgeries he intended to resell. The purchase still held many valuable, authentic pieces of art that would serve to better complete his personal collection. He broadened the collection with Egyptian, Ancient Near Eastern, Islamic and Western Medieval art.
Later in life, Henry continued to make individual purchases for his collection, including bringing the first 鈥淢adonna鈥 by Raphael into America: Madonna of the Candelabra. After his passing in 1931, Henry bequeathed the building and his collection to the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore for public use. In 1934, the Walters Art Gallery opened to the public. As it added more art to its collection through purchases and gifts, it renamed itself in 2000 to the Walters Art Museum.
Walters Bath No. 2 opened in 1901 serving residents living in the busy industrial neighborhoods of southwest Baltimore. The construction of the bathhouse was supported by Henry Walters, art collector and philanthropist. Despite living in New York, Walters supported the construction of four bathhouses spread out spread out across the city to improve public hygiene and sanitation. Bath No. 2 on Washington Boulevard is the only one of the four that still stands. Designed by architect George Archer, the bathhouse features a less-ornate version of the Renaissance Revival architecture that was popular at the turn of the twentieth century. The forty-foot front fa莽ade with four bays facing the street is the only part that is more than strictly utilitarian in design. A large stone plaque across the top of the building reads "THE WALTERS PUBLIC BATHS." Unlike earlier luxurious bathhouses, which date back to the early nineteenth century in Baltimore, Walters bathhouses were erected to improve the sanitary conditions of the crowded industrial city that Baltimore had become. The bath offered a shower, spray, or tub bath to those who usually could not afford access to similar facilities. To oversee this step forward in public health, Baltimore City created the Free Public Bath Commission to supervise the bathhouses as well as comfort stations, swimming pools, school shower programs, and portable shower baths, all of which were operating by 1925. When the building opened in 1902, Bath No. 2 charged three cents for adults and one cent for children for soap and towels, and 2 陆 cents per hour for laundry privileges. Later, the public bath system upped the fee to five cents, a charge that remained until the entire public bath system was closed at the end of 1959.
Watch our on bath houses!
In 1919, the Governor of Maryland and the Mayor of Baltimore appointed a War Memorial Commission that initiated a nationwide architectural competition to design a memorial building dedicated to the 1,752 Marylanders who died in military service during WWI. The design for the monumental building that today faces Baltimore City Hall across War Memorial Plaza was executed by local architect Lawrence Hall Fowler.
A ground-breaking ceremony on November 22, 1921, was attended by Ferdinand Foch, Marshall of France and the cornerstone was laid on April 29, 1923 in a ceremony attended by Acting Secretary of War Colonel Dwight F. Davis, Governor Albert C. Ritchie, and Mayor William F. Broening. The War Memorial was dedicated on April 5, 1925.
The finished building featured a 1000-seat auditorium and a mural by Baltimore artist R. McGill Mackall, depicting, 'A Sacrifice to Patriotism.' In front of the building are two stone sea horses representing the "Might of America crossing the seas to aid our allies." The sculptor, Edmond R. Amateis, included in the statues the coats of arms for Maryland and the City of Baltimore.
The building was rededicated by Mayor William Donald Schaefer on November 6, 1977 as a memorial to the Marylanders who gave their lives in all wars with American involvement during the twentieth century. The War Memorial Building still houses administrative offices for local veterans organizations.
Built in 1925 over the loud protests of local residents who opposed a new factory in their residential neighborhood, the Ward Baking Company is a handsome brick box, designed by C.B. Comstock, a New York-based refrigeration architect and engineer. Based in Pittsburgh, the Ward Baking Company, then known as the Ward Bread Company, also had factories in the Bronx, Buffalo, and East Orange, New Jersey. Long retired as a factory, the building has more recently been used as a church.
The Warden's House on Monument Street is a remarkable work of architecture and a unique reminder of the history of justice and injustice in Baltimore. The Warden's House was erected between 1855 and 1859 as part of a larger city jail designed by local architects, Thomas and James M. Dixon. Originally, this structure served as both a gateway through the jail's perimeter wall and a residence. The warden's apartment was to the structure's west side and a suite for a clerk was to the east. Unsurprisingly, it more closely resembles a fortress than a house, with battlements on the towers, projecting turrets, and lancet windows.
The main jail was altered beyond recognition and the wall was torn down in the mid-1960s to make way for the expansion of the Baltimore City Detention Center. But the Warden鈥檚 House survived and won recognition for its unique Gothic design when the Baltimore Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation made it a local landmark in 1986. The site itself has an even longer history as the site of the city's first jail erected in 1800.
In the eighteenth century, a local sheriff controlled the city jail and, according to John H.B. Latrobe, chief counsel for the B&O Railroad, revenue from the jail's operation made up a "most lucrative part of his income." Prior to the Civil War, some of that income was from the sale of Black Americans who had been arrested as runaways, regardless if they were enslaved or free. If the prisoner could not prove he was free or if an "owner" did not claim them, they would be sold at a court-ordered auction. The jailers and wardens would receive a portion of the sale.
For the new jail, the state legislature established a system where the warden worked under the supervision of a board of visitors and was paid a fixed salary. Though the jail would still benefit from arresting suspected runaways by charging a fee for boarding them.
Early prisoners included famed abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison who spent seven weeks there in 1831. In October 1832, the jail held seventy-five people: forty as "debtors" and thirty-five on criminal charges. The latter group included two eleven-year-old Black boys charged with setting fire to a lumberyard.
By the early 1850s, reform-minded observers sought a new jail where the city could avoid mixing children with "old and hardened prisoners." In February 1851, a grand jury reported on the "inappropriateness of the structure" and the "limited capacity" of the building (then holding over 240 people) to the judges of the City Court. In 1855, a design competition awarded the project to Thomas and James M. Dixon, construction began in 1857, and, by December 1859, the new building was complete. Supervised by warden Capt. Thomas C. James, the new jail had three hundred cells in two separate wings. The Sun observed: "Baltimore can now boast of a prison in point of appearance, stability and comfort, second to none other in the country."
This public jail and several private slave jails that proliferated in early 19th century Baltimore all made money by boarding the enslaved for a fee. For instance, travelling families or slave traders would all want someplace to keep their enslaved workers while they stopped for the night. As the Civil War began, and especially after slavery was ended in Washington, DC in 1862, these jails were also used by local enslavers to house their enslaved workers in order to prevent them from running away.
The buildings where prisoners were held remained almost unchanged for a century until they were transformed in the 1960s. The Warden's House is one of the only jail buildings that has been preserved. The gateway had long since been converted into the warden's living room. In 1974, they were converted into offices while keeping the building's distinctive interior intact.
At present, change is coming to the Baltimore Jail once again; threatening the Warden's House and the nearby 1898 Maryland Penitentiary with demolition. In July 2015, Governor Larry Hogan announced the immediate closure of the Baltimore jail following years of concerns and controversy over conditions for inmates and corrections officers. In the spring of 2016, the Maryland Division of Corrections (MDC) released their preliminary plan for the demolition of the Baltimore City Detention Center including this local landmark. Planning is now underway but preservationists are still working to keep this unique reminder of Baltimore's history from disappearing forever.
Warner T. McGuinn was a lawyer and Civil Rights activist who served two terms as on the Baltimore City Council. McGuinn lived on Division Street with his wife Anna L. Wallace and daughter Alma.
A native of Goochland County, near Richmond, Virginia, Warner T. McGuinn was born less than two years before the Civil War in November 1859. His parents, Jared and Fannie McGuinn, sent him to public school in Richmond and then he went on to graduate from Lincoln University in 1884. Warner McGuinn studied law at Howard University for two years but finished his degree at Yale, where he served as the president of the Law Club and made friends with Mark Twain before graduating in 1887. Twain even supported McGuinn's education after finding out that the young man was working his way through school. McGuinn moved to Baltimore in 1890 and was admitted as a lawyer to the Maryland Bar in 1891. The next year he married Anna L. Wallace, a fellow Virginian, and started a family with the birth of their daughter Alma in September 1895. McGuinn started working with Harry S. Cummings, Baltimore's first African American City Councilman in 1893, and moved to 1911 Division Street, just six blocks north of Cummings' house on Druid Hill Avenue. McGuinn participated in Civil Rights struggles and Republican politics throughout his life in Baltimore. In 1910, McGuinn and W. Ashbie Hawkins worked together to overturn the West segregation ordinance and McGuinn argued against a similar ordinance in court in 1917. In 1911, he voiced his support for women's suffrage by reading an "exhaustive" paper on the issue to an assembly gathered at Bethel A.M.E. Church to inaugurate the Baltimore Historical and Literary Association. The Afro-American Ledger reported that McGuinn reminded his audience of the principle of the consent of the governed found in the Declaration of Independence鈥攎aking it evident that all adults had a right to participate in electing their own representatives regardless of their color or gender. Warner T. McGuinn served two terms as a Republican on the Baltimore City Council, from 1919 to 1923 and 1927 to 1931. In May 1919, after his first election, the Afro-American quoted the new Councilman who said:
"I shall do my best in the City Council to fulfill every pledge that has been made during the campaign, especially as regards the health and school conditions of the race."In 1927, the Sun praised his service as a Councilman, writing:
"No member has been more efficient or more earnest in endeavoring to promote public welfare than Warner T. McGuinn... He set an example of nonpartisanship in consideration of measures before the Council, and when he spoke upon them showed that he had taken pains to inform himself. His record deserves commendation."While visiting his daughter Alma in Philadelphia, Warner McGuinn died on July 10, 1937. His home on Division Street still stands.
The Washington Apartment House at the northwest corner of Charles Street and Mt. Vernon Place is a one of the finest Beaux Arts apartment houses in Baltimore. After the controversial construction of The Severn in 1895, many Mt. Vernon residents were suspicious of new "skyscrapers." Just a month after the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, the Baltimore Municipal Arts Society successfully pushed the Maryland State Legislature to pass an "Anti-Skyscraper Bill" prohibiting the construction of any building (other than churches) over seventy feet high within one block of the Washington Monument. William F. Cochran, the developer of the Washington Apartments, built right up to the limit of 70 feet before suing to erect an 8 foot addition. His lawsuit failed, reinforcing the restriction that became known as Maryland's first zoning law and was one of the earliest zoning laws in the United States.
William Cochran was born to privilege鈥揾is grandfather, Alexander Smith, had amassed a fortune as a carpet manufacturer in Yonkers, New York. Cochran moved to Baltimore in 1902 after marrying Annie Lorraine Gill. Despite his comfortable position among the local high society, he found his personal wealth troubling, explaining in an address on the "Passing of the Idle Rich" at Westminster Church, "The joy of having abundance is terribly mitigated when one is confronted with the sight of and appeals from people living under the opposite conditions. It seems all wrong."
While Cochran was vocal about his socialist ideals, he also sympathized with in the wealthy Mt. Vernon residents who sought to control the character of their neighborhood's development. He explained his purchase of the property at 700 Washington Place, remarking, "A strong desire of property holders on Mt. Vernon Place to control the kind of building to be erected on this site led me to purchase it to prevent anyone from building a skyscraper." Cochran bought the vacant mansion, built for Edward McDonald Greenway in 1835, in April 1905 for $160,000 and soon starting planning for a modern apartment house that could meet with approval from the neighbors.
The architect Cochran selected for the job was Edward H. Glidden, a Cleveland native, who arrived in Baltimore around the same time as Cochran. Glidden had already started a career that led him to become one of the city's foremost architects for apartment buildings with projects including the Stork Apartment House (1903) at Park and Monument, the Marlborough Apartments (1906) on Eutaw Place, Homewood Apartments (1910) at Charles and 31st Street, The Latrobe, Canterbury Hall and Tudor Hall Apartments. Glidden even lived at Homewood Apartments at the time of his death in 1924.
Washington Apartments went up quickly in 1906 at a cost of $300,000. Its six stories included 28 luxurious apartments and 29 rooms for servants. Measuring 69 feet and 8 inches tall, the building stood just under the recently instituted 70-foot height limit. Less than a year after completion, however, Cochran sought a permit application to build one more story, eight feet tall and set back twenty feet, to contain additional rooms for servants. The permit was denied and Cochran went to court, lost, then lost again on appeal in June 1908 with an important decision that affirmed the ability of the city to regulate building heights.
The Washington Monument in the elegant Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland was the first architectural monument planned to honor George Washington. In 1815, a statue was designed by Robert Mills, who also designed the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. Construction began in 1815 and was completed by 1829. The 178 foot doric column holds a ground-floor museum offering information about Washington as well as construction of the monument. Climbing the 228 steps to the top provides an excellent view of the city from the historic neighborhood where it is located. Its neighbors include the Peabody Institute. The monument, which was constructed of white marble from Cockeysville, rises 178 feet and consists of three main elements: a low, rectangular base containing a museum; a plain, unfluted column; and, atop the column, a standing figure of Washington. By the time of the monument's completion in 1829, financial constraints had forced a series of design compromises which simplified the monument.
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On an auspicious afternoon in late September 1903, a crowd of Baltimoreans converged onto the intersection of Mount Royal Avenue and Lanvale Street to witness the unveiling of the William H. Watson monument. The monument, erected by the Maryland Association of Veterans of the Mexican War, honored Marylanders who lost their lives during the U.S.-Mexican War.
Taking place on the fifty-seventh anniversary of Lieutenant Colonel Watson鈥檚 death during the Battle of Monterey, spectators watched as aged survivors of the war took their places on the grandstand. Meanwhile, they also laid eyes on the over ten-foot statue, draped in the flag that had shrouded Watson鈥檚 corpse as it left Mexico. The most symbolic moment came when Watson鈥檚 last surviving child, Monterey Watson Iglehart, walked towards her father鈥檚 likeness and unveiled the statue. The unveiling by Iglehart, born on the day her father died, was the highlight of a ceremony that included speeches from U.S.-Mexican War veterans, politicians, and other dignitaries.
Given U.S. activity in the Caribbean at the time, and the monument鈥檚 connection to the U.S.-Mexican War, the memorial presented a counterpoint to the overall anti-imperialist sentiment that existed in Baltimore. By highlighting the valor and honor of Baltimore鈥檚 U.S.-Mexican War heroes, the public viewed the veterans as heroes of a conflict which greatly benefited the United States, as opposed to participants in an unjustifiable land grab. Thus, the monument served to legitimize the United States鈥 imperialist endeavors of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.
The monument, created by sculptor Edward Berge, was originally located at Lanvale Street and Mount Royal Avenue. In 1930, the monument was moved to Reservoir Hill鈥攚hat was then the entrance to Druid Hill Park鈥攂ecause of a planned extension of Howard Street. Today, the monument blends into the scenery of west Baltimore. The war that it commemorates has faded from memory.
Named after Sir Walter Scott's 1814 novel Waverly, Waverly Terrace reflects the wealth of Franklin Square鈥檚 residents in the 1850s. The Baltimore Sun praised architect Thomas Dixon鈥檚 four-story row as "much handsomer than any yet finished in this city."
Matching the area鈥檚 current diversity today, residents in the early 1860s included both Confederate sympathizers (Miss Nannie, Miss Virginia, and Miss Julia Lomax, charged with disloyalty by Union troops) and African Americans (Lloyd Sutton drafted for the U.S. Colored Troops).
Baltimoreans celebrated the two young sharpshooters credited with killing British General Robert Ross in the 1850s with this monument, their final resting place.
Daniel Wells and Henry Gough McComas gained fame as the "boy heroes" of the Battle of Baltimore. Though the historical record may offer slim evidence to confirm their role during the battle, Baltimoreans have celebrated the legend of Wells and McComas for over 150 years. The young men, aged nineteen and eighteen, served as privates in Captain Edward Aisquith's Sharpshooters of the 1st Rifle Battalion of the Maryland Militia during the Battle of North Point. Wells, an Annapolis native, and McComas had enlisted in Baltimore, where they both worked as apprentices in the city's leather industry. Their battalion first encountered Ross at the Battle of Bladensburg on August 14, just three weeks before the Battle of Baltimore. Although evidence verifying this claim is scant, Wells and McComas have been credited with firing the shots which killed beloved British commander General Robert Ross. Whether or not it was Wells and McComas or other American sharpshooters, this act certainly dealt a heavy blow to the British in their attempt to capture Baltimore. They could not confirm or deny the story themselves since Wells and McComas were found dead after the Battle鈥攖wo of the twenty-four Americans killed at North Point. It wasn't until some forty years after the battle that Wells and McComas gained local celebrity status. During the 1850s, two military companies formed the Wells and McComas Monument Association and solicited subscriptions from citizens to erect a monument in their honor. The group had the boys' bodies exhumed from their vault in Baltimore's legendary Green Mount Cemetery. They laid in state at the Maryland Institute building at Market Place, where thousands of Baltimoreans came to pay their respects. The Sun described the ceremonial catafalque, a platform on which the two coffins rested, as having "a marked degree of good taste" draped in black. To commemorate Defenders' Day in 1858, Baltimoreans carried the coffins in a procession to their current grave site in Old Town's Ashland Square. An unnamed Baltimorean composed an original song to mark the occasion: , sung to the tune of the Star-Spangled Banner. These two local sons were painted in a romantic, dramatic fashion: "'Twas McCOMAS and WELLS - so Fame the fact tells; / This heroic deed their fame evermore swells, / As martyrs of liberty! - And we now raise / A monument high, to continue their praise." In addition to this song, famed playwright Clifton W. Tayleure published a play,, performed at the Holliday Street Theatre. Their remains lay at Ashland Square for fifteen years before the monument was completed. The simple twenty-one-foot tall obelisk, made of Baltimore County marble, cost a total of $3,500. The City Council ultimately provided most of the funding.
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Built in 1899, the West Arlington Water Tower was originally used to supply water to the West Arlington neighborhood in northwest Baltimore just across the city line. The community developed quickly around it with the West Arlington Improvement Company building a new septic system and even a "portable school"鈥攍ater known by the nickname "The Chicken Coop"鈥攆or the scores of families moving into the area in the 1900s and 1910s.
In a 1916 feature on West Arlington, calling it the "Suburb of Many Happy Homes," the Baltimore Sun reflected on the water tower as a local landmark that "should not be overlooked," writing, "It is one of the most beautiful in Maryland and commands a fine view for miles over the country. From its top one can look for miles down the bay and see white-winged vessels drifting in the harbor." Next door stood a "handsome tower house" where local resident, Mrs. J.M. Crowley made and sold "all varieties of baskets and tray."
By the early 1930s, however, the tower had fallen into disuse and the city planned to demolish the structure in 1933. When funding for demolition never arrived the tower simply sat and has remained a landmark ever since.
鈥淭his is a new and finely located 鈥榩lace for the dead,鈥欌 The Iris reported in 1846. Early plans included a chapel and a residence for a cemetery superintendent. Lots were priced at the 鈥渆xtremely moderate鈥 cost of $5 for an 8鈥 by 10鈥 area. Just three years later, in December 1849, the Maryland Assembly passed "An Act to Establish the Western Cemetery" allowing the Trustees of the Fayette Street Methodist Episcopal Church to open a "public" or nondenominational 55-acre cemetery west of the city in Baltimore County. Like Green Mount Cemetery, Western tried to create a park-like open space for visitors to stroll as well as greive. Early burials at the cemetery included both city and county residents from a range of backgrounds. In 1858, the聽Sun聽reported on the burial of William Fairbank, a Baltimore County resident who worked as a conductor on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad between 1830 and 1850 and as the keeper of the bridge on the Baltimore and Washington Turnpike. In the fall of 1861, a number of Union soldiers stationed in Baltimore, likely including soldiers recovering from injuries taken at the Battle of Bull Run (or First Manassas) in July 1861, died from typhoid fever and were interred at the Western Cemetery. In 1915, Baltimore City acquired a portion of the cemetery property for the construction of Ellicott Driveway. This required the closure of the 鈥渢he railroad crossing at the Cemetery lane entrance to Western Cemetery鈥 and an agreement between Baltimore City, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and the officers of the cemetery company. The cemetery continued to聽serve as聽a popular place of internment for military veterans and police officers during the 20th聽century.聽In July 1926, the Sun reported on a huge crowd of 鈥渟everal thousand persons鈥 who attended the burial of Patrolman Webster E. Schumann, noting, 鈥淎 full firing squad of eight men from Camp Meade fired three volleys into the air and a bugler sounded 鈥榯aps鈥 as the services for the war veteran ended.鈥 After World War II, the cemetery, along with nearby Leakin Park, took center stage in West Baltimore鈥檚 highway fights. Relatives of the interred joined forces with environmental activists and local residents in opposing the extension of a proposed highway through Leakin Park and into the city.聽Fortunately,聽Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro responded to this effort and, in 1969, encouraged state highway designers to consider a new route for the Rosemont section of the East-West Expressway to bypass Western Cemetery.
Opened in 1786 by Baltimore's First Presbyterian Church, the Westminster Burying Ground is the resting place for many of early Baltimore's most notable citizens, including merchants, mayors, and fifteen generals from the Revolutionary War and War of 1812. In 1852, the church that also occupies the property was built on brick piers over some of the tombs, creating what is called the "Baltimore Catacombs."
Although notables such as Sam Smith and James McHenry are buried here (bitter rivals in life, fate brought them cheek to jowl in the graveyard), the most famous eternal resident is Edgar Allan Poe. When he died in 1849, Poe was originally buried in an unmarked grave next to that of his grandfather in the back of Westminster. In 1875, Poe's body was moved to the front of the graveyard with a dedication ceremony that included the American poet Walt Whitman. Adding to the mystery that surrounds Poe and his death, Baltimore lore has it that the re-internment in 1875 got the wrong poor soul into the new grave (probably not true) and that the current monument has Poe's birth date wrong (true).
The church and graveyard are now in the care of the Westminster Preservation Trust, a private, non-profit organization established in 1977. In the early 1980s, the Trust restored the graveyard as well as the former church building, and the church is now available to rent.
Before the rise of textile mills, the fast-flowing water of the Jones Falls instead powered gristmills supplying Baltimore's lucrative flour trade. Whitehall Mill was established as a gristmill in the late 1700s and owned by James Ellicott, a member of the same family that settled Ellicott City. In 1839, David Carroll, Horatio Gambrill, and their associates purchased the mill from Ellicott and converted it to a textile mill for weaving cotton duck, a tightly woven canvas used to make ship sails. Over the years, the mill was expanded, burned, rebuilt, renamed, and converted to a number of different commercial uses. To house their workers, Carroll and Gambrill built Clipper Village, a cluster of homes located across from Whitehall for the mill's workers. The capacity of the mill was doubled in 1845 and the mill was converted to steam power to keep up with manufacturing demand. By 1850, forty men and sixty-five women were working at Whitehall Mill with an output of 220,000 yards of cotton duck. Carroll and Gambrill quickly expanded by converting other gristmills along the Jones Falls to textile mills. The three-story granite factory burned in 1854 and, after it was rebuilt, renamed Clipper Mill in recognition of the ships that used the cotton duck cloth for sails. By this point, William E. Hooper, a sailmaker who expanded his business to selling raw cotton to the textile mills, had joined as a partner. In the 1860s, Gambrill sold his shares in the company to Hooper and opened Druid Mill. After another fire in 1868, Clipper Mill was rebuilt at twice its size. The mill was sold in 1899 to the Mount Vernon-Woodberry Cotton Duck Company, a national conglomerate. In 1902, the mill manufactured the cotton duck for Kaiser Wilhelm's yacht, which was christened by Alice Roosevelt as the Meteor III. In addition to ship sails, the mill manufactured other heavy canvas items such as mail bags for the U.S. government. In 1925, the mill was sold to Purity Paper Vessels, a firm that manufactured paper containers that could hold semi-liquid foods. The mill's cotton manufacturing machinery was shipped to Mount-Vernon-Woodberry Company's Southern mills in Tallassee, Alabama and Columbia, South Carolina. During the year of the sale, several elegiac articles appeared in the Baltimore Sun that looked back on the time when Baltimore's cotton duck manufacturing was at its peak and its clipper ships dominated international trade. Purity Paper Vessels later sub-leased part of the building to the Shapiro Waste Paper Company. In 1941, half the building was leased by the Army Quartermaster Office to be used as a warehouse for the Third Corps Area. By the 1940s, the I. Sekine Brush Company, a maker of men's grooming products and toothbrushes, occupied the mill. The company was founded in 1906 and had been operating plants in Baltimore since 1928. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, H.H. Sekine, who had been living in the United States for over twenty years, was arrested and interrogated, along with dozens of foreign-born Baltimoreans connected to nations on the Axis side. At the time, Sekine was operating a factory in Reservoir Hill that the government shut down for two weeks. When it reopened shortly before Christmas, Sekine paid all his employees in full for the time they lost during the closure. Over time, portions of the Clipper Mill property were leased to other companies, including Penguin Books, The Maryland Venetian Blind Manufacturing Corporation, and Star Built Kitchen Units. Sekine maintained operations at the Whitehall mill location until 1992 when it was sold to Komar Industries. Most recently, developer Terra Nova Ventures transformed the building into a mixed use development with a planned market. Architects Alexander Design Studio restored much of the long neglected mill, bringing new life to the historic structure. Numerous improvements were made for flood prevention, including the construction of a pedestrian bridge over Clipper Mill Road.
On October 13, 1935, William 鈥淟ittle Willie鈥 Adams and Victorine Quille were married at Saint Peter Claver Catholic Church. The young businessman and the school teacher each came from different backgrounds. William Adams, originally of Zebulon, North Carolina, arrived in Baltimore at age fifteen. Over the next six years, Adams worked his way up from running numbers and cutting sail cloth into rags at a shop on Caroline Street to owning three businesses (a bicycle shop, candy store, and barbershop). Victorine Adams grew up in a working-class family in Baltimore. She graduated from what is now Frederick Douglass High School and enrolled in the teacher training course at Coppin Normal School (now Coppin State University). Shortly after completing the two-year training course and beginning work as a teacher, Victorine met William Adams. The pair married in 1935 and, soon thereafter, William and Victorine emerged as an influential couple in the political, social, and economic spheres of Black Baltimore. They owned several businesses along Pennsylvania Avenue (including Club Casino and the Charm Centre) and made loans to Black business owners throughout the city in the 1940s and 1950s. But they also started to use their money and connections to push for political change. In 1946, Victorine founded the Colored Women鈥檚 Democratic Campaign Committee of Maryland (CWDCC) to interest Black women in politics and increase their participation in the social, civic, and economic development of the city. The CWDCC鈥檚 home base was the basement of the Adams family home on Carlisle Avenue in the neighborhood of Hanlon Park. When they moved to Hanlon Park in July 1949, the couple were the first Black residents in the community鈥攎ost of their neighbors were white and Jewish. The basement served as the headquarters for many voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns, as Victorine trained volunteers how to vote using an instructional model table-top voting machine from the Automatic Voting Machine Corporation of Jamestown, New York. The couple helped many successful Black politicians win office in their campaign to diversify Maryland politics: Harry A. Cole to the Maryland State Senate in 1955; Verda Welcome to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1962; and Parren Mitchell to the United States Congress in 1970. Their home also served as the base for subsequent successful political campaigns by Victorine. She won her own seat in the Maryland House of Delegates in 1966 and became the first Black woman to serve on the Baltimore City Council after a successful race in 1967. The Adamses continued to be involved in Baltimore politics and philanthropy throughout their lives, whether they were fundraising for the now-defunct Provident Hospital or supporting the William L. and Victorine Q. Adams Foundation, which awarded scholarships to Black residents of Baltimore City for undergraduate studies in business-related fields. Their Hanlon Park home sold shortly after Victorine died in 2006. William moved to an apartment at Roland Park Place where he died in 2011.聽
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Born on November 2, 1921, William Donald Schaefer lived most of his life in a modest rowhouse on Edgewood Street. The only child of William Henry and Tululu Irene Schaefer, he attended Lyndhurst Elementary School, Baltimore City College and the University of Baltimore.
After serving in Europe during WWII, Schaefer made two unsuccessful attempts for a seat in the Maryland House of Representatives. In 1955, local political king-maker Irvin Kovens, nicknamed the "The Furniture Man" for his West Baltimore furniture store, and Phillip H. Goodman, founder of the Dandy Fifth Democratic Club, recruited Schaefer to run for the Fifth District Baltimore City Council seat. From this modest beginning, Schaefer went on to become Baltimore City Council President, then Mayor, and Governor of Maryland.
In 1894, William G. Scarlett founded the William G. Scarlett Seed Company. Born in Baltimore in 1873, George D. Scarlett was a true entrepreneur who chased the American dream. At twenty-one, George Scarlett began working in the seed industry by 鈥渋mporting seeds from various parts of the world and exporting dried apples." Under the management of George Scarlett, the company expanded its inventory; selling grass, grain, and bird seeds. A Baltimore Sun article stated that 鈥渉is [George Scarlett鈥檚] business mushroomed principally through his own efforts and at one time was the largest east of the Mississippi River." Although the William G. Scarlett Seed Company expanded opening branches in other cities, Baltimore remained the company headquarters.
The Scarlett Seed Company remained in the family as George D. Scarlett passed over the company reins to his sons Raymond G. Scarlett and William G. Scarlett. As eccentric as his father, Raymond Scarlett was not only the company president, but also a badminton champion. An adamant badminton enthusiast, Raymond Scarlett founded the junior national badminton championship tournament. William George Scarlett succeeded his brother Raymond in running the company. Following in the unique footsteps of his father and brother, in addition to managing the family business, William Scarlett joined the Army Counter Intelligence Corps, also known as the CIC, during WWII.After the company vacated the property, in the 1980s, the site was developed into retail space, office space, and condominiums. Today, the Scarlett Seed Company Property is now known as Scarlett Place, paying tribute to the bird-seed businessmen.232 West Lanvale has a neat appearance that belies its age as the oldest house in Bolton Hill. Amazingly, it reportedly looks almost exactly the same today as it did when built in 1848. Originally part of a group of three Italianate houses facing towards downtown Baltimore, the home offered a country retreat to early northwest Baltimore residents. The owners added the bay window on Bolton Street 25 years after the house was built, salvaged from Charles Howard's mansion (where Francis Scott Key died) after the building was torn down to make way for the Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church. One of the longest residents in the house, Dr. William Henry Howell, rented the home for forty years as he taught medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Howell is best remembered for his discovery of the anti-coagulant heparin.
By the 1960s, the charming cottage had attracted its own literary community, including Maryland poet and scholar William F. Stead, who died there in 1967 at the age of 82. Stead was a friend of T.S. Eliot, William Yeats, and many other British poets thanks to decades spent living in England. His host at the home was Mrs. Edward C. Venable (nee Nancy Howard De Ford), a Maryland native, descendant of both John Eager Howard and Francis Scott Key, and a published poet and author. She married her husband, himself a well-known writer, in 1924 and the pair spent every summer in France returning to Lanvale Street in the fall. Among Mrs. Venable's friends was Tennessee Williams, who patterned one of his stage heroines after her: Violet Venable in Suddenly Last Summer.