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BALTIMORE

pands just below the city, affording an extensive and safe harbor, with an outer bay which is able to accommodate the largest ocean steamships and an inner harbor or basin for small coastwise and bay crafts. Thirty-two steamboat and steamship lines connect the city directly with Liverpool, Bremen, Rotterdam and other foreign ports, and with nearly all the bay and river towns of Maryland and Virginia as well as the larger American seaports of the Atlantic. The city is on the main line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad between New York, Washingon and the west; it is on the Philadelphia-Washington division of the Pennsylvania Railroad; and is the terminus

THE WATERWAYS

TO

BALTIMORE & WASHINGTON

of the Northern Central Railway, a branch of the same system. The city is the terminus of the Western Maryland Railroad—the outlet of the Shenandoah and Cumberland valleys—which recently became a part of the Wabash system; and it is also the terminus of both the Maryland & Pennsylvania and the Baltimore & Annapolis Railways. The city has direct connections, too, with the Southern Railway, the Atlantic Coast Line and the Seaboard Air Line.

Baltimore is the youngest of the great American cities on the Atlantic coastline. The city, consisting then of sixty acres, was first laid out in 1730, and was created upon the petition made a year earlier by certain residents upon the Patapsco to the Maryland legislature. In 1732 another town was started across a small stream from Baltimore-Town, and this settlement took the name of Jones' Town, from the stream— Jones'^ Falls. The two towns were consolidated in 1745; and Baltimore was enlarged from time to time thereafter until with the large addition gained by the taking in of the Annex in 1888 it now covers 31J square miles. The city was called after Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore and one of the proprietaries of the province of Maryland. It was originally included in Baltimore County, and became the county seat in 1767. Subsequently, however, the city and county were divorced, and Baltimore today has an independent government from the county by which it is surrounded. During the Revolutionary War Baltimore became an important center, and for a while housed the Continental Congress, after that body was forced to retire from Philadelphia. In 1780 Baltimore became a port of entry, and in 1796 was incorporated into a city. During the ^second war with England the city was subjected to two attacks by the British—one by land and the other by sea; but both were unsuccessful. The land attack resulted in the Battle of North Point, (Sept. 12, 1814,) when the British lost their commander, Gen. Ross, and retired without accomplishing their purpose. The following day, September 13, the fleet opened fire upon Fort McHenry—the city's chief defense. The bombardment lasted all day and night, and had the fort been taken Baltimore would have fallen prey to the enemy. But on the morning of the i4th the American flag was seen still flying over the ramparts of the unconquered stronghold, and the enemy abandoned all hope of taking Baltimore. It was the sight of this Amer-ican^ flag waving over Fort McHenry that inspired Francis Scott Key, who had been detained by the British during the bombardment, to write America's national anthem— The Star-spangled Banner. Shortly after the War of 1812-15 the residents of Baltimore raised two monuments—one to Washington and the other to the defenders of North Point; and these memorials won for the town the name of the Monumental City. The first blood of the Civil War was shed in Baltimore, (April 19, 1861), when a mob sought to prevent the passage through the city of the Sixth Massachusetts and the Seventh Pennsylvania regiments, then on their way to Washington in response to Lincoln's call for volunteers. Historically, there are other important events connected with the city of Baltimore: It was the first