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AMERICA. Joel Cook
Читать онлайн.Название AMERICA
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isbn 4064066393632
Автор произведения Joel Cook
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
The "Ark" anchored, and the smaller "Dove" was sent cruising along the shore of the Potomac above Point Lookout, "to make choice of a place probable to be healthfull and fruitfull," which might be easily fortified, and "convenient for trade both with the English and savages." The little "Dove" sailed some distance up the Potomac, examining the shore, and encountered various Indians, who were astonished when they saw the vessel, diminutive, yet so much larger than their canoes, and said they would like to see the tree from which that great canoe was hollowed out, for they knew nothing of the method of construction. The colonists talked with the Indians, having an interpreter, and Leonard Calvert asked a chief: "Shall we stay here, or shall we go back?" To this a mysterious answer was made: "You may do as you think best." Calvert did not like this, and decided to land nearer the bay, so his vessel dropped down the river again, and they finally landed on a stream where they found the Indian village of Yoacamoco. The Indians were very friendly, sold part of their village for some axes and bright cloth, gave up their best wigwams to Calvert and his colonists, and in one of these the Jesuit fathers held a solemn service, dedicating the settlement to St. Mary; and thus was founded the capital of the new Palatinate of Maryland. Under Calvert's wise rule the colony prospered, kept up friendliness with the Indians, enjoyed a lucrative trade, and, after a long struggle, ultimately managed to make Claiborne abandon the settlement on Kent Island, which became part of Maryland. To the northward of them was the estuary of the Patuxent River, meaning "the stream at the little falls." St. Mary's County is the peninsula between the Patuxent and the Potomac, terminating at Point Lookout, and a quiet and restful farming country to-day. Leonardstown, on the Patuxent, named after Leonard Calvert, is the county-seat; but the ancient village of St. Mary's, the original colony and capital, afterwards superseded by Annapolis, still exists, though only a few scattered bricks remain to mark the site of the old fort and town. At St. Inigoe's is the quaint colonial home of the Jesuit fathers who accompanied Calvert, and its especial pride is a sweet-toned bell, brought out from England in 1685, which still rings the Angelus. At Kent Island scarcely a vestige remains of Claiborne's trading-post and settlement.
THE MARYLAND CAPITAL.
The settlers of Maryland were not all Roman Catholics, however, for Puritan refugees came in there. Above the Patuxent is the estuary of the Severn River, and here, in a beautiful situation, is Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, which has about eight thousand inhabitants, and was originally colonized in 1649 by Puritans driven from the James River in Virginia by the Episcopalians in control there. The settlement was at first called Providence, and Richard Preston, the eminent Quaker, was long its commander. Afterwards it was named Anne Arundel Town, after Lady Baltimore, which still is the name of its county, although the town came to be finally known as Annapolis, from Queen Anne, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, who gave it valuable presents. It is now best known as the seat of the United States Naval Academy, which has a fine establishment there, founded by George Bancroft, the historian, when he was Secretary of the Navy, in 1845. Its ancient defensive work, Fort Severn, has been roofed over, and is the Academy gymnasium. The city was made the capital of Maryland in 1794, the government being then removed from St. Mary's, and the State Capitol is a massive brick structure, standing on an eminence, with a lofty dome and cupola, from which there is a fine view of the surrounding country and over Chesapeake Bay. In the Senate Chamber General Washington surrendered his Commission to the American Colonial Congress which met there in December, 1783, and in it also assembled the first Constitutional Convention of the United States, in 1786. In front of the building is a colossal statue of Chief Justice Taney, of the Supreme Court of the United States, a native of Maryland, who died in 1864. Annapolis formerly had an extensive commerce and amassed much wealth, until eclipsed by the growth of Baltimore, and now its chief trade, like so many of the towns of the Chesapeake, is in oysters.
THE MONUMENTAL CITY.
The head of Chesapeake Bay, on either side of the Susquehanna River, is composed of various broad estuaries, with small streams entering them. To the eastward the chief is Elk River, and to the westward are the Gunpowder and Bush Rivers, with others. Not far above the Severn is the wide tidal estuary of the Patapsco, so named by the Indians to describe its peculiarity, the word meaning "a stream caused by back or tidewater containing froth." A few miles up this estuary is the great city and port of the Chesapeake, Baltimore, so named in honor of Lord Baltimore, and containing, with its suburbs, over six hundred thousand people. The spreading arms of the Patapsco, around which the city is built, provide an ample harbor, their irregular shores making plenty of dock room, and the two great railways from the north and west to Washington, which go under the town through an elaborate system of tunnels, give it a lucrative foreign trade in produce brought for shipment abroad. From the harbor there are long and narrow docks, and an inner "Basin" extending into the city, and across the heads of these is Pratt Street. This highway is famous as the scene of the first bloodshed of the Civil War. The Northern troops, hastily summoned to Washington, were marching along it from one railway station to the other on April 19, 1861, when a Baltimore mob, sympathizing with the South, attacked them. In the riot and conflict that followed eleven were killed and twenty-six were wounded. A creek, called Jones's Falls, coming down a deep valley from the northward into the harbor, divides the city into two almost equal sections, and in the lower part is walled in, with a street on either side. Colonel David Jones, who was the original white inhabitant of the north side of Baltimore harbor, gave this stream his name about 1680, before anyone expected even a village to be located there. A settlement afterwards began eastward of the creek, known as Jonestown, while Baltimore was not started until 1730, being laid out westward of the creek and around the head of the "Basin," the plan covering sixty acres. This was called New Town, as the other was popularly termed Old Town, but they subsequently were united as Baltimore, having in 1752 about two hundred people.
Baltimore is rectangular in plan and picturesque, covering an undulating surface, the hills, which are many, inclining either to Jones's Falls or the harbor. Its popular title is the "Monumental City," given because it was the first American city that built fine monuments. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the State of Maryland erected on Charles Street a monument to General Washington, rising one hundred and ninety-five feet, a Doric shaft of white marble surmounted by his statue and upon a base fifty feet square. This splendid monument stands in a broadened avenue and at the summit of a hill, surrounded by tasteful lawns and flower gardens, with a fountain in front. It makes an attractive centre for Mount Vernon Place, which contains one of the finest collections of buildings in the city, and presents a scene essentially Parisian. Here are the Peabody Institute and the Garrett Mansion, both impressive buildings. Baltimore has a "Battle Monument," located on Calvert Street, in Monument Square, a marble shaft fifty-three feet high, marking the British invasion of 1814, and erected in memory of the men of Baltimore who fell in battle just outside the city, when the British forces marched from Elk River to Washington and burnt the Capitol, and the British fleet came up the Patapsco and shelled the town. The city also has other fine monuments, so that its popular name is well deserved.
The City Hall is the chief building of Baltimore, a marble structure in Renaissance, costing $2,000,000, its elaborate dome rising two hundred and sixty feet, and giving a magnificent view over the city and harbor. There are two noted churches, the Mount Vernon Methodist Church, of greenstone, with buff and red facings and polished granite columns, being