Seton Hill is a predominantly residential neighborhood just northwest of the central business district. It is one of the oldest intact rowhome neighborhood's in the United States. Seton Hill is comprised of well kept restored row houses, small businesses, and Saint Mary's Park (the largest green space in downtown Baltimore). Seton Hill is centered, historically and geographically, around the former site of St. Mary's Seminary and College, which opened in 1791 and was the first university in Maryland. Many of the buildings still standing in Seton Hill were erected between that time and 1850, making this neighborhood a charming place to live today.
The original, early 19th century row houses along the streets of Seton Hill remain sturdy to the present day. Unfortunately, many of the original structures have been demolished, especially on St. Mary and Orchard Streets; however, Paca, Tessier, Eutaw and Jasper Streets remain largely intact. Many buildings on Eutaw and Franklin Streets in Seton Hill were converted to store fronts around the turn of the 20th century due to the growing commercial needs in Baltimore.
The row house of the early 1800's was an inexpensive way to live. Total construction cost may have been as low as $500 to $800 and the yearly ground rent no more than $18. The houses were built without the intermediary of an architect. The proportions were determined largely by the millwork (sashes, frames, etc.) that was available to the carpenters and masons. Buildings were erected singly or in pairs--at most in groups of four--until a block was filled. The greatest flurry of construction came between 1820 and 1850. By the outbreak of the Civil War, nearly every lot in the area had been improved.
Nonetheless, dating the individual buildings and the architectural developments within that period is difficult. Historical data are at best scanty. Architectural studies are almost nonexistent. (Possible sources are Assessment Books, Land Records, City Directories, Insurance Records, Millwork Catalogs, and analyses of brick and mortar.)
As far as can be determined, the first brick structures in Seton Hill were small 2-story dwellings, some with shed roofs, most with peaked roofs and dormer windows. (The majority of these have undergone the additional of a third story.) The entrance was at street level. All but a few had basements. Ceilings were very low.
From this point several developments came about. Buildings tended to be taller; peaked roofs flattened out to the shed roofs of the mid-19th century; entrances were raised above street level and steps were added; ceilings grew higher and basements more functional; dormers disappeared; and walkways were left between pairs of buildings.
Most of the early structures were little more than 2 single rooms stacked on top of each other. Over the years, ells were built in the rear.
Several styles of window arches developed between 1800 and 1850. The earliest and least expensive was the paling wood lintel, usually painted. Some structures used the flat brick arch, breaking the pattern to insert a row of vertical brick stretchers over the window opening; others maintained the brick pattern straight across. The Mainstay of the Seton Hill contractors was the splayed flat brick arch. It was probably used as early as 1820 and as later as 1850; these arches tended to be more widely splayed the later they appear. In the 1830's and 40's, builders experimented with the eyebrow or depressed arch: the earlier variety with a double row of headers and the later variety with all stretchers. It was also in the 1840's that wood lintels made a comeback with Greek Revival accents. The 1850's saw the return of the widely splayed flat arch, which adorned the stately three-story, shed roof row houses.
There is also a marked development in the use of cornices. The earliest, those of the 1820's, were merely a slightly protruding band of bricks across the top of the facade. Later, rows of brick dentulous were introduced. Wood cornices first appeared with 3-story shed roof structures. These were usually simple, but more millions were added on the later cornices, often with rows of dentulous in between. When the three-story row house reached its full height in Seton Hill, the cornices featured only a few millions, primarily to articulate relief work on increasingly complex eaves. Cornices can be an effective means of dating these row houses, but one must beware of original 2 1/2 story and dormer structures on which both the third story and the cornice are late additions. According to the terms of the Act of 1729 creating Baltimore Town, seven commissioners were appointed to purchase land for the town (a 60 acre tract on the northwest branch of the Patapsco River), to divide the land into 60 equal lots, and to allow for streets and alleys in the town. One of the principal persons involved in these responsibilities was an early resident of the Orchard-Biddle area, Dr. George Walker, who owned the Chatsworth estate located northwest of the regional Baltimore Town. The Chatsworth tract was patented by the provincial government of Maryland around 1668, but it was not until 1730 that Walker established the Chatsworth estate. The estate was eventually increased to 950 acres (according to some sources, many of these were planted in wheat and tobacco) and included a two-story brick mansion located near Franklin Street between Pine and Greene Streets. The mansion, surrounded by a stone fence set in lime, was distinguished by a double row of cherry trees which led from the road to the house and old locust trees which lined the main walkway through the garden. The architect and builder of the house are not know. John Adams, after dining at Chatsworth in 1777 when the Continental Congress was sitting in Baltimore, observed that "... there is a fine prospect about it [the estate]" and "the whole family [then the George Lux family] profess great zeal in the American cause." The estate passed through several owners, including the Lux family for whom Light Street is named, Jeremiah Hoffman, a prosperous merchant, and Daniel Bower Banks who resided at Chatsworth until 1875. By 1844 Chatsworth had been subdivided into streets and lots marking the way for the future development of the area. There currently are no clues to the past existence of the Chatsworth estate except perhaps for the manner in which the area's street pattern developed. The last reference to the estate in the area was the name Chatsworth for the street which is today Myrtle Avenue. After the Revolutionary War in the 1780's, Colonel John Eager Howard delineated a tract of land to be annexed west of Baltimore Town. In addition to designating the street names Eutaw and Lexington, he set aside a lot for a public market on Howard's Hill. This market, the Lexington Market, was not developed, however, until 1803. In addition, Howard offered a tract of land to his friend Samuel Chase in order that Judge Chase would move his residence from Annapolis to Baltimore 1786. Judge Chase, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, built his home on this tract bounded by Lexington, Paca, Fayette, and Eutaw Streets and lived there until 1811. By about 1820, the residence had been demolished. The Chase Mansion is particularly remembered in Baltimore history for it is hear that Jerome Bonaparte was introduced to Betsy Patterson at a ball in 1803. Another person who played a part in the early development of the Orchard-Biddle area was Louis Pascault. Pascault, who was born in France and reared in San Domingo, settled in Baltimore in the early 1780's. According to an 1801 Baltimore map, the Pascault house was located on Saratoga Street between the now Pine and Greene Streets with grounds extending to Lexington Street. The estate included a large brick house, brick stable, carriage house, and dependencies. Across the street from these grounds a group of eight rowhouses, today called Pascault Row, was built between Pine and Pearl Streets during the period 1819-1822. The architect was Jacob or William Small. This was an early real estate venture encouraged by the enlargement of Baltimore's boundaries in 1816. Today these houses are used as retail commercial shops and are listed as landmarks on the city's historic landmark list. Pascault was one of many Baltimoreans who aided the San Domingan refugees who fled from their country during the revolution in 1793. In July of that year, 53 ships brought 500 refugees to Baltimore. These persons were received into Baltimore homes, and $12,000 was raised for them. As the refugees were French-speaking people, many settle in the vicinity of St. Mary's Seminary and played a significant role in the history of the Seminary. The establishment of St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore was result of the French Revolution, which forced seminaries to close and public religious services to be suspended in Paris. In 1790 Bishop John Carroll met with Father Nagot of the Order of St. Sulpice and agreed to a plan for the establishment of the Sulpician Order in Maryland. A year later Fathers Nagot, Tessier, Garnier, and Levadoux and a few students arrived in Baltimore and opened the Sulpician headquarters in One Mile Tavern then located at Franklin Street and Hookstown Road, known today as Pennsylvania Avenue. (One of the streets in the Orchard-Biddle area now bears Father Tessier's name). The Sulpicians soon purchased the inn, adapting it to a seminary, and in future years they completed an extensive college and seminary complex in the area of the existing Seminary structures. St. Mary's thus became the first Catholic seminary in the United States, celebrating its 175th anniversary in 1966. Originally, the Sulpician priests taught the students who had accompanied them from France. But there were few new students for the Seminary as those who wanted to enter the priesthood studied at nearby Georgetown College, the only Catholic university in the U.S. at that time. Since the Seminary had no applicants for several years, the Sulpicians became pastors and bishops and went to other parts of the U.S. where they were needed. Then in 1801 after unsuccessful attempts to open a school in Havana, Cuba, Father Dubourg returned to St. Mary's and opened an academy on the Seminary grounds. This was the beginning of St. Mary's College. Sons of San Domingo exiles and a few boys who had come to the U.S. with Father Dubourg attended the school. New buildings were constructed for the academy, and two years later in 1803, the school was opened to American students. (Bishop Carroll had requested that American boys attend Georgetown College. When the Spanish government ordered the West Indian students to leave Baltimore, the school was opened to American students). In the next few years, the school expanded and more buildings were added. Chartered by the Maryland legislature in 1805, St. Mary's College flourished and served as the educational center for some of the most prominent Catholic and non-Catholic families in Maryland and the South. The College, however, did not attract many students who wanted to enter the priesthood, and in 1852 the Jesuits took over the work of St. Mary's College with the opening of Loyola College. St. Mary's College was closed, and the old buildings were demolished. While St. Mary's College was an active educational institution, the Seminary continued to have students enrolled in the seminary classes. The size of these classes increased after 1852 creating a need for additional space, and thus the core of the present building complex was built in 1878. The Seminary on Paca Street only recently ceased to be an active school when the last departments moved to the Roland Park campus (at Roland and Belvedere) and to Catonsville. In 1970 the Model Cities Agency moved into the large Seminary building which is being used for a program center. Today, the Seminary complex stands as a reminder of the history of this area of Baltimore. One particularly significant structure located on the Seminary grounds is a small chapel, the Chapel of Our Lady of the Presentation, which was dedicated in 1808. This structure, designed by Maximilien Godefroy, a prominent architect of the time and teacher at the college, is the oldest remaining example of Gothic Revival architecture in the U.S. It is here that the exiled French and San Domingan exiles among others worshipped and the first black Catholic congregation developed from a catechism class for black people conducted by Father Tessier. In 1861 some interior changes were made to the chapel; after this date, the public was no longer permitted to worship there. Most recently, the chapel building was restored and the interior was modernized in 1968. The federal Department of the Interior has recognized the architectural significance of the building by placing it on the National Register of Historic Places. Associated with St. Mary's is the founding of three Catholic orders: The Sisters of Charity, the Oblate Sisters of Providence, and the Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (although this last association with St. Mary's is not as strong). In 1808, Mrs. Elizabeth Seton at the invitation of Bishop Carroll came to Baltimore from New York and opened a school for girls on the secondary level. Several young women helped Mrs. Seton teach and care for the household, and in 1809 Bishop Carroll directed Mrs. Seton to begin the sisterhood, the Sisters of Charity. At that time, the title of Mother was conferred upon her. The school was moved to Emmitsburg, Maryland, a year later. Two recent developments concerning Mother Seton took place in the 1960's. In 1962 a restoration committee, Mother Seton House, Inc., was organized to raise funds for the restoration of the house and to oversee the project. The restoration work is now completed and the house has been decorated with furniture and accessories contemporary to the period when Mother Seton occupied the house. The house is open to the public. Then in 1963, the hour of beautification, the last step before canonization, was bestowed upon Mother Seton. Her former home thus has become an important religious landmark for persons of the Roman Catholic faith. Twenty years after the founding of the Sisters of Charity, another sisterhood, the Oblate Sisters of Providence, was formally established. Through his teaching at the Seminary, Father James Hector Nicholas Joubert discovered that a school was needed for the children in the area. Consequently, Father Joubert requested three young women, Elizabeth Lange, Mary Madeleine Balas, and Marie Rosine Boegue, whom he had known at the Seminary chapel, to begin a school. As their own small private school for black children had closed, the young women agreed to assist Father Joubert. In 1828, the school opened with nine students at #5 St. Mary's Court (now Seminary Court). Three years later, the order became the first Negro canonically approved religious society in the U.S. After Father Joubert's death in 1843, the Sulpicians withdrew from directing the order to return to their work at the Seminary. The Sisters of Providence struggled to maintain their sisterhood, and through the efforts of, first, a Redemptorist priest and second, the Jesuits, the sisterhood was able to continue working in the Baltimore area. Most recently, in 1963 the Mount Providence Junior College was established in Baltimore County by the Sisters of Providence. St. Mary's Seminary at one time owned most of the land which today is the Seton Hill Historical and Architectural Preservation District and significantly influenced the subdivision of the area into streets and lots. In 1791 and 1792, Father Nagot purchased a large amount of property (at one time, part of the Chatsworth estate) for the Seminary. As early as 1797, the Seminary began to sell lots on Hookstown Road for one dollar apiece, later followed by lots on Eutaw Street and Ross Street (Druid Hill Avenue). In fact, additional property adjacent to the Seminary holdings was purchased by Father Tessier in 1804 "so that we [the Sulpicians] could extend Paca Street through our orchard and sell lots there." A comparison of nineteenth century Baltimore maps indicates that the area was largely built up between 1823 and 1850 although some housing was constructed on Eutaw, Pennsylvania, Franklin, and St. Mary Street before 1823. By 1852, the Seminary had sold or leased most of the property outside the grounds which today comprise the Sulpician holdings on Paca Street. In 1968 the area bounded by Franklin, Eutaw, McCulloh, Orchard, and Pennsylvania Avenue was designated the Seton Hill Historical and Architectural Preservation District, one of the city's recognized historic districts. Each year during the annual Seton Hill Open House Tour, the public can see the individual Until 1816, the Orchard-Biddle area, including Seton Hill, was outside the Baltimore City boundary. In that year, annexation of a large area extending to North Avenue was accomplished, increasing the city's population by 16,000 persons and accelerating the city's real estate market. It was at this time that the rowhouses know as Waterloo Row (formerly located on Calvert Street) and Pascault Row were built. But Pascault Row, according to one author, was "too remote from the center of the city to prove profitable investments." The Seminary and related activities have continued to play a significant role in the development of the Orchard-Biddle area. There are also other institutions, important to the City which were built in or near the area. To aid the poor, a provision was enacted in 1772 for the construction of the Baltimore County almshouse. William Lux, one of the original Trustees of the Poor and second owner of the Chatsworth estate, sold 20 acres of land in the vicinity of Madison Avenue near Linden and Madison to the almshouse Trustees. In 1793, this tract was increased by ten additional acres through the purchase of property previously owned by George Lux, son of William Lux. The almshouse was demolished in 1827. Also near Orchard-Biddle and still in stages of expansion, the College of Medicine of Maryland (today part of The University of Maryland) was begun in 1806. Dr. John B. Davidge initiated the idea of a medical school through his lectures on anatomy and surgery at an Anatomical Hall which he built about 1800 near the southeast corner of Liberty and Saratoga. This structure was later demolished, but Dr. Davidge with Dr. James Cocke and Dr. John Shaw applied to the Legislature for the privilege of establishing a medical college. They received permission, and in 1806 construction of the hall at Lombard and Greene Streets (designed by Robert Cary Long) began. A year later Doctors Davidge, Cocke, and Shaw and Father Dubourg of St. Mary's College submitted a proposal for the merger of the medical school and St. Mary's College to the state legislature. As part of this agreement, the medical school would have received free a tract of land on Morris Street (St. Mary Street) for a new building in exchange for allowing free tuition for several St. Mary's College students. According to the plan, the two schools would have contained the faculties of theology, arts, medicine, and law, but the plan was rejected by the House of Delegates. In 1812, the state legislature passed an act granting the College of Medicine of Maryland the privilege of associating with it Faculties of Law, Arts and Sciences, and Divinity under the name of The University of Maryland. The Department of Divinity was never organized, and the Department of Arts and Sciences ceased operation in 1872; two other departments -- Dentistry and Pharmacy, were added in 1841 and 1882 respectively. Baltimore Medical College merged with the university in 1913. Today, the Baltimore campus also includes schools of nursing and social work. The University is proceeding with its development program in Baltimore, and will relate to the Inner City Community Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center that will be located adjacent to Orchard-Biddle at the southern boundary. Construction of this facility probably will begin in Fall 1971 or Spring 1972. A charitable organization which provided free services to sick persons, the Baltimore General Dispensary, was incorporated in 1807. The Dispensary purchased one of the Pascault Row houses in 1893 and later in 1912 completed a new structure on the northwest corner of Fayette and Paca Streets. The services offered by the Dispensary now have been absorbed by other institutions in Baltimore. The Baltimore Ear, Eye and Throat Charity Hospital opened in a small rowhouse at what was then 186 W. Franklin (today 625 W. Franklin) in November 1882. Sixteen years later the hospital moved into a new building on its original site, which is now the location of the Martin Supply Company. The hospital moved to new facilities at the corner of Lanvale and Eutaw Place in 1922. Recently, the hospital merged with Maryland General Hospital and dedicated its new building adjacent to Maryland General in 1968. Maryland General Hospital was incorporate the same year that the Ear, Eye, and Throat Charity Hospital began operating. It opened a year later as an adjunct to the Baltimore Medical College in a structure previously used for an orphan asylum at the corner of Linden and Madison. The hospital which began with 50 beads has greatly increased its facilities and services since its founding and has future plans to expand its physical plant. Another significant institution, Johns Hopkins University, was established near Orchard-Biddle in 1876 when "Little Ross Street [Druid Hill Avenue] was a pleasant lane between the side walls, gardens and stables of wide early Victorian dwellings fronting on the more lordly streets." The University remained in this location (generally Monument, Howard, Franklin, and Eutaw) for forty years until moving to the Homewood campus in 1916. In the late nineteenth century, Baltimore City College founded as the Male High School of Baltimore in 1838, was housed in a building adjacent to the original by the Thomas A. Edison Vocational School and Western Female High School. Western High School was first located on Fayette Street near Paca and occupied other buildings prior to moving to the former City College structure in 1954. Western is now located on Northern Parkway, and the old building at Howard and Centre today houses a high school and adult education center. There is little additional documentation on school sites once located in or near Orchard-Biddle. In addition to St. Mary's Seminary and its significance in the development of the community, there are other religious institutions located in Orchard-Biddle which have been part of the area's early history: St. John the Baptist-Roman Catholic Church, Mr. Calvary Episcopal Church, Chatsworth Methodist Church, St. Mary's Episcopal Church, and others. Some of these continue to be active today. As a result of Baltimore's expanding industrial development in the mid-nineteenth century, Mt. Calvary Episcopal Church was established. In 1842, Dr. Wyatt, Rector of St. Paul's, reported the need for a new parish in northwest Baltimore to the official church body, Convention of the Diocese. The Convention realized this need and rented a warehouse on Franklin Street between Howard and Eutaw for the organization of the new church. A year later the property where Mt. Calvary now stands was given to the church, and Robert Cary Long designed the church structure for this site. The structure, consecrated in 1846, was built with a steeple which remained part of the church until 1914 when a severe storm blew down the steeple (the 2000 pound bell in the steeple contributing great force to the crash). Associated with Mt. Calvary have been the establishment of the convent for the All Saints' Sisters of the Poor (1873), and two other orders, the Sisters of Saint Mary's and All Saints (1876) and the Sisters of the Holy Nativity. Mt. Calvary established St. Mary's Episcopal Church or Chapel of St. Mary the Virgin in 1873 originally for a black congregation. The church first met in the All Saints Mission House and later moved to its new church building on Orchard near Madison. In 1961 the congregation moved to Walbrook and another congregation now occupies the church building on Orchard Street. St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church was originally dedicated as a Protestant Baptist church, Seventh Baptist, in 1847. The Baptist congregation remained here until 1906 when it merged with the congregation of Emmanuel Baptist and built a new church at St. Paul and North Avenue. A year after the Baptists left their building at Paca and Saratoga, a Lithuanian Catholic congregation moved into the building. However, it appears that few Lithuanian families lived in this section of the city. Then in 1917, another change occurred at the Paca Street church when St. John's became an Italian national parish church. The parish was largely composed of Italian families (and later descendants of the original families) who had emigrated from Cefalu, located on the northwest coast of Sicily, in the early 1900's. At one time, as many as 1800-2000 Italian families resided in the area around the Lexington Market where many of the families operated fresh produce stalls and later sent their children to St. John's elementary school (from 1931-1951). The Italian community began to disperse in 1955. Today, a few businesses (Trinacria Foods, Inc., Maranto Bakery, DiMarco's Grocery) are the most obvious vestiges of the once closely-knit Italian community. In 1859, a Sunday School was started on the second floor of a rowhouse on the southwest corner of Franklin and Pine Streets. The Sunday School which used the neighborhood name of Chatsworth, became Chatsworth Methodist Church in 1861 although the existing building was not built until 1863. The church declared independence from any church authority three years later and remained independent until 1898. In future years the Chatsworth congregation merged two times (in 1903 and in 1954) and now is part of the Hillsdale-Chatsworth Methodist Church. The old building is now occupied by a Baptist congregation. At one time the First United Presbyterian Church was located on Madison Avenue at Biddle Street. Organized in 1825 as an associate Presbyterian church primarily by the Scotch and Scotch-Irish families in Baltimore, the church became known as First United Presbyterian Church in 1858 and moved to the Madison Street location in 1860. Today the church is located at Hillen Road and 30th Street. Like the Sulpicians who began their work in Baltimore in an inn, St. Joseph's Seminary (Society of Saint Joseph of the Scared Heart) received its first students in what formerly had been the Western Maryland Hotel at the corner of St. Mary Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in 1888. This Seminary was established by several priests from the St. Joseph's Foreign Mission Society of Mill Hill, London, England, whom Pope Pius IX assigned in 1871 to spread the Catholic faith among American Negroes. From St. Joseph's earliest days, the Josephite seminarians were taught by the Sulpician fathers until the theological department of St. Mary's moved to Roland Park. The Josephite fathers instituted their own faculty when they moved to their new seminary in Washington, DC in 1930. Today, the George Washington Nursing Home occupies the old Seminary building. Commercial development obtained a foothold in Orchard-Biddle at the beginning of the nineteenth century. By this time, Baltimore had gained the status of a trade center and had become a well-known stopping point for the wagon trade to the west. Goods from the Lexington Market and stores located a few blocks east and south of Orchard-Biddle provided the wares and goods for this trade. Perhaps most instrumental in establishing the reputation of Baltimore as a trade center and the Lexington Market as a fine market was the National Road, the route which the Conestoga wagoners followed from Baltimore to western outposts. "From the time it was thrown open to the public, in the year 1818, until the coming of railroads west open to the public, in the year 1818, until the coming of railroads west of the Allegheny mountains in 1852, the National Road was the one great highway, over which passed the bulk of trade and travel, and the mails between the East and West." (The link connecting the National Road, which began in Cumberland, Maryland, and Baltimore was a much older road. The two roads together were know as the National Road). As more and more traffic used the National Road, numerous inns along the now eastern boundary of the Orchard-Biddle area opened to serve the wagoners who traveled to and from Baltimore with their laden Conestoga wagons. The characteristic feature of the old taverns was a large, stone paved yard lined with stables similar to the historic English inn yards. "In the busy season the Hookstown road was blocked nightly by Conestoga wagons, and when they [the wagoners] reached the city many tied up along Franklin Street, where the horses ate their oats from wooden troughs ... On the day following arrival, consignments of whiskey, grain and flour were exchanged in the stores that lined Howard and neighboring streets for groceries, dry goods and fancy goods, and, after a brief rest, the return journey began." Among the taverns located in the near Orchard-Biddle were the White Swan (southwest corner of Franklin and Eutaw), Golden Lamb (northwest corner of Franklin and Paca), Chained Bear (Saratoga Street), Western Hotel (southwest corner of Howard and Saratoga), Golden Horse (northwest corner of Franklin and Howard), General Wayne (northwest corner of Paca and Baltimore ), Western Maryland Hotel (formerly the "Bee Hive" tavern, corner of St. Mary Street and Pennsylvania Avenue), Pennsylvania Hotel (Franklin Street between Paca and Greene), and Hand House (Paca Street between Lexington and Saratoga). Demolition of the Hand House took place in 1917, one of the last old inns to be demolished. From the day of the Conestoga wagoner until the present, the Lexington Market has been a focal point of Baltimore's trade activity (and residential development as well). At one time, the Market stretched along both sides of Lexington Street from Eutaw to Pearl Streets; the following excerpt vividly illustrates the character of the early Market. The pavements are covered with heaps of fruits and vegetables waiting to be sold or carted away again. the streets are blocked up with piles of cabbages, carefully built up in pyramids; barrels of apples, bags of potatoes, boxes of turnips. The wagons are all backed up against the sidewalk, and as the supplies on the stand are exhausted reinforcements are drawn from the vehicle. The horses have not been forgotten, and stand patiently munching their oats from a crib or nosebag. All this is outside the market house, on the open streets. In the paved square the crown is a little denser and the hum a little deeper, but the character of the scene is the same. First come the flower stands, overflowing with roses and violets, geraniums and lilies, chrysanthemums and the choicest fruits of the florist's skill. The aisles of the market house proper present one great conglomerate. At every turn there is a fresh odor to sniff at and a new sight to see. Apples, bananas, oranges, cauliflower, leeks, celery, cabbages, coconuts come in quick succession; then great pickle stands, with tubs of condiments that make one's mouth literally water; rich creamy cheeses, sold by rosy-cheeked, white-aproned matrons, - everything that will tempt the eye and please the palate. In the Centre avenue or meat market even the vegetarian turns heretic. quarters of beef and huge sirloin cuts. Distributed here and there hand turkeys, ducks, geese, partridges, pheasants and pigeons. The walk terminates in a large open square, used as a fish market. Here lie blue, delicate mackerel, piles of shad, trout, white perch, oysters and hard and soft-shelled crabs. The Lexington Market is still one of Baltimore's best known landmarks and is housed in a structure completed in 1952. Today there are 102 stalls in both the main market building and west market (located in the large market parking garage). In addition to the Lexington Market vendors and taverns, other businesses apparently found the Paca-Franklin Street area a suitable commercial location. For instance, a soap and candle manufactory was established on Pearl near Lexington, a stone cutters shop on Franklin near Paca, a cigar maker on Paca near Franklin, and a leather goods store at the corner of Lexington and Paca. In addition, many merchants who operated stores on Baltimore street resided on Franklin Street near Paca and Pearl. One small cluster of grocery stores was located on Pennsylvania Avenue near Biddle Street. But aside from the Paca-Franklin Street commercial area, no significant concentrations of businesses occurred in the first half of the nineteenth century. Most of the commercial and industrial firms now located in the Orchard-Biddle area were established during the last fifty years. some notable exceptions to this statement are Koester's Bakery (established in 1887), Geo. Franke & Sons (established in 1868), Trinacria Foods, Inc. (established in 1901), Hammerbacher Brothers (established in 1866), J. Benesch & Son (established in 1897), and the Mullan-Harrison Co. (established in 1904). Each of these businesses remains at its original location generally in expanded facilities except the Franke Company which was established nearby on Eutaw Street. Since the early 1900's, numerous businesses have located in Orchard-Biddle primarily along the streets which have been significant as commercial pathways for 170 years or longer: Paca Street, Eutaw Street, Lexington Street, Franklin Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue. Although in Baltimore's early days, most of the Orchard-Biddle area was "off the beaten path" (being located slightly to the north and west of the busy harbor and primary shopping area), it later (beginning around 1800) attracted a considerable amount of commercial and residential development. The project area's peripheral streets became attractive business locations as the emphasis on western trade increased and the Lexington Market developed into a local trade center. Many merchants and craftsmen lived near their businesses and, in this way, the nucleus of the residential community developed. Churches and schools were built to serve both the immediate and city-wide community. Thus today the central part of the project area is largely residential wit major businesses on the south and churches throughout the area. Important institutions such as The University of Maryland hospital and professional schools and Maryland General Hospital continue to function on their original but expanded sites adjacent to the project area. Much of the area has deteriorated and is marred with the manifestation of severe blight. Both individual and community efforts are and will continue to be necessary in confronting and eliminating these problems. Nevertheless, the area remains to be a desirable location for residents and businessmen with its proximity to the downtown retail area (Eutaw and Howard Streets), expanded office facilities (State Office Complex and Charles Center), the inner harbor area (to be redeveloped for housing, recreation, and office space), and educational facilities (the Maryland Institute of Art, The University of Maryland, and the future Community College of Baltimore in the Inner Harbor project). As the short history has indicated, these locational advantages are not just modern-day occurrences, many began over one and one-half centuries ago and have continued to be important to the immediate community and Baltimore City as the City has grown. In planning for the area's redevelopment, one important input is the history of the area - why certain kinds of land uses were established - providing perhaps a rationale for future development as well. Specifying particular land re-uses simply because of historical precedent should be questioned, but a study of the manner in which the area developed and the reasons for this development can be a valuable tool in establishing the future use of the project area.
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