Alexander Brown (1764-1834), an Irish linen merchant, settles in Baltimore and creates the first investment bank in the United States. In 1808, the company organizes the first nationwide public offering for the Baltimore Water Company.
John O’Donnell brings the first Asian immigrants to the US in 1785 as sailors on his ship that carries a cargo of Chinese goods. His statue in O’Donnell Square has been recently removed.
Drawing on the bounty of the Chesapeake Bay, Crisfield, with a population of 25,000, becomes the 2nd largest and southernmost community in Maryland in 1904.
Fannie May Salter (1882-1966) takes over the duties of the Turkey Point Point lighthouse keeper in 1925 upon her husband’s sudden death. She retires in 1947 as the last female lighthouse keeper in the country.
After 18 years of attempts, the Robert Peary Expedition claims to be at the North Pole. Matthew Henson (1866-1955) is the first in the party to reach the Pole.
The Potomac River is declared a National Marine Sanctuary at Mallows Bay. A “Ghost Fleet” of 230 WWI ships along with other vessels lies in the small bay on the Potomac River south of Washington DC.
Baltimore’s Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard launches the first of 14 “emergency” ships, the SS Patrick Henry, at Liberty Fleet Day with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in attendance.
The Washington County Free Library in Hagerstown, second oldest in the U.S., sends out America’s first bookmobile to remote parts of the county. The wagon, with 2500 books on board, is pulled by horses, Black Beauty and Dandy, and driven by Joshua Thomas, the library janitor.
A new naval school begins in Annapolis with 50 midshipmen and seven professors. Annapolis is chosen as a “healthy and secluded” location, rescuing midshipmen from “the temptations and distractions that necessarily connect with a large and populous city.”
The first use of DNA links 27 black workers buried in the local cemetery of the Catoctin Furnace (c1800) and reveals links to nearly 42,000 living relatives, tracing the enslaved back to their African origins.
We acknowledge the enduring presence of many American Indian tribes who once lived in Maryland and who now, having lost their lands, live in a diaspora. Read more.
© 2023 MARYLAND 400
