Baltimore was laid out in 1729, on an area of sixty acres, purchased at forty shillings per acre, and partly paid for in tobacco at a penny a pound. Its progress was slow and unpromising; and in 1752 it contained but twenty-five houses. With its population of more than eighty thousand, it may now be considered the third or fourth city in the union. According to its re-charter in 1816, Baltimore now includes ten thousand acres, and contains a lunatic asylum, three theatres, an exchange, a public library, and forty-five churches.
The Cathedral is built after the Ionic order, on a plan drawn by the celebrated architect Latrobe. Its width is one hundred and seventy-seven, its length one hundred and ninety, and its height to the summit of the cross surmounting the dome, is one hundred and twenty-seven feet. It contains several fine paintings, and the largest organ in the United States. The Merchants’ Exchange, built by private subscription for the accommodation of the citizens, is a spacious and splendid edifice.
The Battle Monument is an elegant marble structure, fifty-five feet high, erected in memory of those who fell in defence of the city on the twelfth and thirteenth of September, 1814. The Washington Monument is built of white marble, on an elevation in the north part of the city; it is one hundred and sixty-three feet high, and on its summit is placed a colossal statue of Washington. This monument is embellished with bas-reliefs, and other decorations.
Battle Monument, Baltimore.
Baltimore is the greatest flour market in the United States. In its immediate neighborhood, are above sixty flour mills, a single one of which has produced thirty-two thousand barrels in a year. Within the same compass are numerous manufactories of cotton, cloth, powder, paper, iron, glass, steam engines, and other articles. The Baltimore and Ohio rail-road extends a distance of three hundred miles, from this city to the Ohio river at Pittsburgh. The Baltimore and Susquehanna rail-road is toextend seventy-six miles to York in Pennsylvania. The Chesapeak and Ohio canal, of the proposed length of three hundred and forty-one miles was commenced in 1828.The population of Baltimore is one hundred and two thousand three hundred and thirteen.[60]
Bangor is a flourishing town of Penobscot county, Maine, situated thirty-five miles above Castine. It is built upon the banks of the rivers Kenduskeag and Penobscot. The increase of this town within a few years has been very surprising. Building-lots near the centre of the town, that in 1832 were held at three hundred dollars, are now valued at eight hundred or a thousand. Woodlands at three, four, or five miles distance, that were then sold at five, seven, or ten dollars the acre, are now selling from twenty to fifty. Rents and all marketable commodities are proportionably high.
‘Bangor,’ says a correspondent of the Portland Advertiser, ‘has much the appearance of a hundred villages springing up on the non-slave-holding side of the Ohio, with this difference, that the buildings there are chiefly of wood, cheaply built, and hastily thrown up; and here they are fine blocks of brick with granite fronts, or handsome white houses that would do credit to any estate in Virginia or Carolina. I do not remember seeing what can be called a miserable house in Bangor. The Exchange is a building that would do credit to many of our large cities. The churches are numerous, and often elegantly built. Already they are numerous enough for a city; and it is such a spectacle that distinguishes New England; for no where, not even in the middle states, are such churches, and so numerous to be seen, as any village in New England of any size can exhibit.’
The water power in this vicinity is said to be superior to that of any town in the United States. Its present great source of wealth is the lumber business, which has been carried on to a very great extent. Thirty years ago, Bangor was a wilderness; according to the last census, its population was eight thousand six hundred and twenty-seven.
Bath, a town of Maine, on the west side of the Kennebec, twelve miles from the sea, is at the head of the winter navigation; is pleasantly situated,and has great advantages for commerce. Ship-building is carried on here to a large extent; and in 1827 the value of the shipping of Bath was a million of dollars. This town is almost isolated by some of the numerous arms of the sea which penetrate that part of the coast. Population, five thousand one hundred and forty-one.