USA > Maryland > The book of Maryland: men and institutions, a work for press reference > Part 4
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Like other old cities Baltimore had grown along cowpaths and narrow streets. The very sec- tions that needed ample spaces were cramped and congested. A commission laid out the new plan with wise liberality. For example the lane known as Light Street became a splendid avenue with abundant room for the commerce to and from the fleets of steamers that trade on the Chesapeake Bay and its hundreds of miles of tributaries. Light Street today is one of the notable business streets of America. The narrow street that ran along the Marsh Market section was a disgrace. Here a great avenue of commerce was created; fine buildings in advance of any of their kind in America were erected and there followed in natural development the building of municipal piers that are models and the covering of Jones Falls that gave a smooth and continuous driveway connecting the northern sections of the city with its harbor. At the critical moment Baltimore had the courage to stand on its own resources and the wisdom born of this new independence modernized its whole busi- ness area.
Baltimore had often been called slow and its other name was the Terrapin City. One of our wits said the best way to make a terrapin move was to place a hot coal on its back. The fire was the hot coal that made the terrapin city find its pace-a pace that grows as the years roll on.
Baltimore was first in many things, the first Cathedral, the first Methodist Church, the first monu- ment to Washington, the first railroad, the first telegraph line, the first linotype, the first electric railway in the United States, the first dental college in the world, the first medical society in the United States, the first gas company; and it has many attractions, the Walter's Gallery, Fort McHenry, the second largest armory in the world, where Wilson was nominated, and a score of other possessions that interest the visitor.
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Captain John Smith and his companions, who visited the upper Chesapeake in June, 1608. were the first white men to see the site of Baltimore. In 1662 Charles Gorsuch patented 50 acres of land on Whetstone Point. In 1682 David Jones settled on the north side of the harbor and gave his name to the stream which afterwards divided the new town. On January 12, 1730, a town of 60 acres was laid out west of Jones Falls and called Baltimore in honor of Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore. In 1732 a new town of 10 acres in 20 lots was laid out on the east side of the Falls and called Jonestown, and in 1745 the two towns were united. The county town was removed from Joppa to Baltimore in 1767. The court house and whipping post were perched on a hill that existed where the Battle Monument now stands. In 1773 William Goddard established the Maryland Journa! and Baltimore Advertiser, now the Baltimore American, and during the Revolutionary War this paper wes edited by Katherine Goddard, the first American woman in journalism. In 1775 Baltimore con- tained 561 houses and 5,934 inhabitants. In 1776 Congress met in Baltimore at the corner of Baltimore and Liberty Streets. Baltimore took a fine part in the Revolutionary War. Washington and Lafayette visited Baltimore. Rochambeau and his troops camped on the Cathedral street hill near the present Catholic Cathedral. After the Revolution Baltimore grew rapidly. In 1796 it had a population of 20,000; in 1797 it was incorporated, and the first mayor was James Calhoun. Lines of packets and stage coaches and turnpikes brought new prosperity. The trade of the Chesapeake was developed. In the War of 1812 Baltimore was prominent. Its ships became famous. The Battle of North Point stopped the British and gave the nation its anthem, "The Star Spangled Ban- ner." There was a fine intellectual life in the first half of the century and literature and journalism prospered. It was also a great time for church building. July 4, 1828, Charles Carroll, of Carroll- ton, laid the cornerstone of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and then began the great era of railway construction which meant the conquest of a continent and in these new facilities Baltimore moved to larger and larger prosperity. Baltimore troops won honors in the War with Mexico. In the Civil War Baltimore suffered much and changed greatly, but between 1860 and 1870 its population increased 55,000, and this increase continued in larger ratio after the war.
Baltimore has been fortunate in its mayors. I have known them since 1870 and I have served under many of them on commissions and committees. There have been the usual differences due to the acute politics natural to our people. but the mayors I have known have been men devoted to the best interests of the city. keenly loyal to its welfare and zealously assiduous in everything that could promote its growth and trade. Thus we have had a forward policy that was practically continuous. Fifty years ago the city was wise enough to invest $800,000 in Druid Hill Park and to establish a tax on gross street railway receipts that has resulted in a park system which money could not buy and which costs the people nothing. From time to time came the larger improvements, the bridges. the city hall, court house, the water supply, the niany schools, the markets and all the other accessories of municipal efficiency. George Peabody's gift of a million dollars for the Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins' great fund for the university and the medical school, Enoch Pratt's free library, from which Andrew Carnegie took his library plan, and Carnegie's gift of the Maryland Institute Building are among the many benefactions that came to the growing city. Baltimore's growth in culture. in music and in educational facilities was splendid and people came here from every land drawn by the fame and the skill of our teachers and our doctors. The credit for the most intelligently planned and systematically developed suburban development belongs to Baltimore. It has gained enormously in handsome residences and its streets are noted for their good pavements. Fifty years ago the streets were not all paved and I recall horse races along Baltimore Street, the course being from Jones Falls to Howard Street. Then the city got along with modest expenses. Note the contrast! For this year, 1920, Baltimore's budget calls for $28.593,637.70.
Nothing Baltimore has done excells the Washington Monument which stands in the centre of the city and gives distinction to Mount Vernon Place. This monument is a Dorie column of white marble on a base 50 feet square and 35 feet high, the shaft of the column rising 160 feet and surmounted by a statue of Washington fifteen feet high. Second to this beautiful column is the Battle Monument also of marble on Monument Square. There are a score of other monuments including memorials to Poe. Key, Bruce, and the first monument to Christopher Columbus, and they fully justify the title of Monumental City. Following the close of the Great War Maryland desired to erect a memorial to her brave sons who played their part in the mighty struggle. Both State and city appointed committees and then the matter went to the General Assembly with the result that it came out with an appropriation of $200,000 and a new commission. Now city and
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State got together and decided: "That it is the sense of the joint committee that the soldiers, sailors and marines memorial consist of a memorial building of artistic design, containing proper. utili- tarian features, to be determined by the committees of the State and city in conjunction with a building committee recommended to be named by the respective commissions, said memorial build- ing to be located on the ground offered by the city of Baltimore, lying between the following: Gay, Fayette and Lexington streets."
To the $200,000 of the State the city will add a share and thus we shall doubtless secure a building worthy of its purpose and of the Maryland people. The contrast between the monument to Washington and the memorial under way is an interesting illustration of the idea that has come into the American mind-that it must justify the ornamental by making it useful. Let us hope that the tribute to the brave men of the Great War will be as successful in its way as has been the monument to Washington, one of the noblest columns ever erected.
From past 80 -one may look back and see an active life of fully 65 years. Mine began early; in my teens I was circling the world, and I had four years of seeing other countries before I came to America and served five years in the Union Army. It was my happy fate to love Baltimore the first time I saw it and began to know its people. After the war I entered its life and became one of its workers. For more than a half century I have been in this work. As manager of Maryland's oldest newspaper I have been called upon almost continuously to meet and co-operate with the men and women who have made Baltimore what it is. They are- splendid people, the best in the world. Baltimore is fine, generous, cheerful, forward-looking, prosperous because of the people. First and foremost are the people, my friends and your friends. They are the cause and the explanation of the virtues of our city. We have climate. location, water, railroads, nearby mountains and sea. We are next door to the nation's capitol and all the great cities are our neighbors. All are good, but the people are first. In people and position and resources we are blessed beyond other places. If I had my life to go over again I would stay here and find still more happiness among my good neigh- bors and good workers who are proud of their city and who always are glad to do an unselfish service for its welfare. Baltimore is great and fine-but the Baltimoreans. the people who love their city-they are the salt of the earth!
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HIS EMINENCE, JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS.
Though occupying a position of great power and influence, there is no leader in the affairs of America who sets a more noble example of humility and gentleness of mien. nor is as a counselor and friend of rich and poor alike, more acceptable, than is llis Eminence. James Cardinal Gibbons.
Born July 23. 1834. he was baptized at the Cathedral in Baltimore, and at an early age accompanied his parents to Ireland, there to receive his primary education. From childhood he had devoted his every mental faculty to acquirement of that knowledge which was eventually to result in his occupancy of the most exalted position possible to bestow upon one of his faith in his native country.
With the determination to devote his life to the service of the Church, he came to Baltimore from New Orleans. in which place he had resided for two years, and was admitted to St. Charles College, Maryland, from which he graduated In 1857, then taking np his theological studies at the Seminary of St. Suplice. St. Mary's University. Baltimore. He was ordained priest by Archbishop Kendrick June 50. 1861, and became assistant to Rev. James Dolan, at St. Patrick's Church, Baltimore. Ilis next charge was the small congregation of St. Brigid's Church, Canton, Maryland. In 1965 he became private secretary to Archbishop Spalding, who made him chancellor of the archdiocese. The following year he was made assistant chancellor over the Second Plenary Council at Baltimore, and Pope Pius IN having erected the State of North Carolina into a new Vicariate Apostolic. March 3. 1868, he nominated Chancellor Gibbons titular Bishop of Adramyttum, and the first Vicar AApostolic of North Carolina ; he being consecrated by Archbishop Spalding at the Cathedral in Baltimore, Angust 16. 1868.
Bishop Gibbons was sent to the Diocese of Richmond on July 30. 1872. as successor to the Right Reverend Juin McGill, who had died the preceding January, and Archbishop Bayley installed him as Bishop of Virginia, October 20. 1\'S. On July 29. 1877. he became titular Bishop of Jinopolis, with right of succession to the Primatial See of Baltimore Upon the death of Archbishop Bayley, October 3. IS77. he became Archbishop of Baltimore. He was created cardinal by his IIls Holiness Pope Leo XIII, June 30. ISSG, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood.
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FRANK A. FIRST.
In June, 1910, a contract was awarded for the drainage of the Everglades, great Florida swamps which were one hundred and sixty by eighty miles in extent, reaching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, with an acreage of eleven million acres of land, -an area equal to the States of Connectient, Rhode Island and Delaware. This contract was awarded to Frank A. First, of Baltimore, Maryland, president of the Maryland Dredging and Contracting Company. and though one of the largest enterprises over attempted, it is merely an illustration of the esteem with which the man who accepted the contract is regarded, and is but one of his many projects.
Frank A. Furst was born in Baden, Germany. December 30, 1845, and with his parents, arrived in America when in his third year. The family settled in Baltimore, and the son attended St. Michael's Parochial School, at Lombard and Wolfe Streets. The family lived at Fell's Point, in the mansion which was the first house on this neck of land and which had first been occupied by Thomas Fell. in whose honor the section was named. His father died in 1852, and Mr. Furst worked at various trades,
During the Civil War Mr. Furst enlisted in the Union Army, served throughout the conflict. He was wounded at the Battle of Bull Run. The war over, he went West to Missouri and Montana, and received a wound while in the latter State during an engagement with a band of Indians; being taken back to St. Lonis, he was engaged for a short time In the elevator business.
Hle returned to Baltimore at the age of twenty-one: became inspector in the grain trade and held other offices in connection with elevators : among others, being manager of the Northern Central Railway elevators, a position which he resigned In 1901. after thirty years.
In addition to the presidency of the Maryland Dredging & Contracting Company. Mr. Furst is president of the Furst-Clark Company, a subsidiary organization. He is connected with the following organizations: President of the Assurance Building & Loan Association. Fidelity Deposit Company, Metropolitan Savings Bank : director of the Conti- nental Trust Company : president of the Arundel Corporation ; director of the Fidelity Trust Company.
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DANIEL WILLARD.
Daniel Willard, President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. with offices in Baltimore, was born at North Ilartland. Vermont. on January 28, 1861. son of Daniel Spaulding and Mary Anna (Daniels, Willard. He was graduated from Winsor (Vto High School in 1878, and attended Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1878 and 1879. Mr. Willard served in various duties on different railroads until isog, in which year he became assistant general manager of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company. He continued in that position until 1901, when he became assist- ant to the President of the Erie Railroad. subsequently becoming third vice-president and general manager of the latter company. lle continued with the Erie Railroad until 1904, when he became second vice-president of the Chicago. Bur- lington & Quincy Railroad Company. In 1909 and 1910 he was also president of the Colorado Midland Railroad Com- pany, and vice-president of the Colorado & Sonthern Railway Company. On January 15, 1910, he was elected to the presidency of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company.
On October 30. 1916. Mr. Willard was appointed by the President a member of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense, and when the Commission was organized. was elected Chairman, in which position he served during the period of the war. lle also became Chairman of the sub-committee of transportation and comummini. cation of the Advisory Commission, and in that capacity, at the request of the Council of National Defense, brought about the co-ordination of the steam railroads for war purposes, which plan continued in effect until the railroads were taken over by the Federal Government on December 25. 1917. He also arranged for the appointment of committees representing the different agencies, such as electric railways, highways, inland rivers and canals, thereby obtaining a larger degree of co-operation than ever before.
On November 17. 1917, Mr. Willard was appointed by the President as Chairman of the War Industries Board. Owing to the serious transportation difficulties which developed in the Eastern section of the United States, because of the unusual severity of the winter, he resigned the Chairmanship of that Board on January 11, 1918, in order to devote his entire time to the management of the Baltimore & Ohio property.
On October, 1918, at the regnest of General Pershing. Mr. Willard was commissioned Colonel of Engineers, whh orders to proceed at once to France for service in the Transportation Section of the Engineer Department, but owing to the signing of the armistice it was unnecessary for him to go, and shortly afterwards he was honorably discharged. Mr. Willard is a member of the Phi Sigma Kappa Fraternity : the Chicago Club (Chicago) Maryland. Baltimore Country, Merchants' and I'niversity Clubs, Baltimore, the Lotus and Century Clubs of New York. lle has been a
member of the Board of Trustees of Johns Hopkins University Since 1914.
On March 2. 1885, Mr. Willard married Bertha Leone Elkins, of North Troy, Vermont. Daniel Willard. Ir .. their son, left the Harvard Law School in April. 1917. and joined the first Officers' Instruction Camp at Fort Myer, near Washington, D. C. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant of Artillery in August, and was ordered to Frater : attended Military School of Instruction for three months at Samant, France : was attached to the New England or euch Division and served as Second Lieutenant with the Battery until Inue, 1918, and In various capacities thereafter. such as Regimental and Brigade Adjutant. and Vide on General Edwards' staff. He was cited for bravery in the hattie of Slechprey and awarded the Croix de Guerre in that connection.
Residence. 206 Goodwood Gardens.
Ollees -- Baltimore and Ohlo Railroad Building. Baltimore and North Charles Street. Baltimore, Md.
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CAPTAIN ISAAC EDWARD EMERSON.
Captain Isaac Edward Emerson, president of the Emerson Drug Company, Baltimore, and the originator of Bromo- Seltzer, was born at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, July 24, 1859; son of Robert J. and Cornelia Lewis (Andson, Emerson.
He graduated at the University of North Carolina as chemist in 1879, and assisted one year in the laboratory of the University. In 1881. he came to Baltimore to enter the retail drug business, and establish a laboratory. After originating the formula of Bromo-Seltzer, he retired from retail business ; devoting his time to the manufacture of this now world famed prodnet, and to his numerous other interests.
Captain Emerson organized the Emerson Drug Company in 1891, becoming its president. He Is also president of the Cltro Chemical Works of America, at Maywood, N. J., a subsidiary of the Emerson Drug Co., manufacturers of citrle acid, acetanilid and caffeine. He organized and is chairman of the board of the American Bromine Co., manufacturers of bromine and bromides. Midland, Mich. He also organized and controls the Maryland Glass Corporation. Mt. Winuns. Baltimore, the largest manufacturers of blue glassware in the United States. He erected the Emerson Hotel. Baltimore and Calvert Streets, Baltimore, at a cost of $2,000,000. This hostelry ranks among the finest in the Eastern States. Ills war record is an enviable one ; he having organized the Maryland Naval Reserve, which umstered Into service In 1898, nnder his personal command. He was commissioned lieutenant in command of the 5th Lighthouse District. U. S. N., and elected captain of the Maryland Naval Brigade. Although actively in touch with the executive depart- ments of his various chemical and commercial interests, he spends much of his time at his county estate, Brookland- wood, Green Spring Valley, where he has a model dairy with 125 head of registered Guernsey und Holstein cows, which are under the supervision of U. S. Government.
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BISHOP JOHN GARDNER MURRAY.
Bishop John Gardner Murray, head of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, was born Angnst 31. 15.7. in Lonaconing. Maryland, son of James and Ann (Kirkwood Murray. He received his preliminary education in the publle schools of his native State, afterward attending Wyoming Seminary, Kingston. Pennsylvania. Intending to enter the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church, he studied at lirew Theological Seminary, Madison, New Jersey. The death of his father, however, forced him to turn his attention to business, he being the eldest of the family. Ilis Interests included the mining of coal. the manufacture of iron and steel, the raising of stock. and farming. began business in Kansas and Colorado, but soon moved to Alabama, where he engaged in the coal and iron industry. The works were situated in a region remote from church facilities, and every Sunday a visiting clergyman of olle denomination or another would conduct religions services for the community. Mr. Murray held a lay license in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and on many occasions himself officiated at these services when no minister was available. In 1886 Mr. Murray was confirmed in the Protestant Episcopal Church. He then became a lay reader, and Janu- ary 1, 1898, was made a deacon by Bishop Jackson, receiving ordination as a priest April 16. 1994. from the hands of the late Bishop Wilmer, of Alabama, Ilis first charge was the Alabama river missions, a territory of about two hundred miles along the Alabama River from Selma to Mobile, and included, at that time, three separate congregations. The missions were not altogether self-supporting. nor were they well organized, but at the end of his four years service they had increased in number to eight congregations, were entirely self-supporting, and contributed regularly to aid others,
In 1886 Mr. Murray became rector of the Church of the Advent. in Birmingham, Ala., and under his management the edifice, which had never been finished, was completed in handsome style, and the congregation became noted for It- strength and good works throughout the State.
In 1903 he accepted a call to the rectorship of the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, in Baltimore. During his six and one-half years at that church 482 persons were confirmed and the Mission Chapel of the Guardian Mugel was built nul paid for.
Immediately after coming to Baltimore, he was elected Bishop of Mississippi, and the following your was chosen Bishop of Kentucky, but declined both elections, desiring to devote his services in Maryland. He was elected Bishop Condjntor of Maryland May 26, 1900, on the first ballot, and was consecrated in his own parish church, on its patronal feust, September 20, 1909, with eleven Bishops in attendance.
In the administration of the affairs of his diocese Bishop Murray has the hearty, harmonious co-operation of all his prople, both clerical and lay, to which is due in a large measure the present vigorous and successful church and minulty work of the Protestant Episcopal body in Maryland.
Bishop Murray married December 8, 1889, in Usage City, Kansas, Clara Aller Hunsicker, originally of Chicago, They are the parents of five children, one son and four daughters, all of whom reside in Baltimore. The Bishop- residence Is on the Cathedral grounds, Charles Street and University Parkway, and hls office is at the Htiocesan Church House. 409 X. Charles Street.
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JOIN RANDOLPH BLAND.
Jolin Randolph Bland, President of the United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company, with central offices in Balti- more, was born on March 24, 1851. in Brigeton, a suburb of the city of St. Louis, Mo .. son of Dr. Richard Edward Bland and Henrietta (Williams) Bland, The history of the Bland family is traceable back to approximately the eighth century in the affairs of ancient England. The first member of the family to seek America as a place of abode was Theodorick, who settled in Tidewater, Virginia, in 1654, and married the governor's daughter, later becoming a member of the King's Council for Virginia. The tomb of Theodoriek still stands over his grave in Westover churchyard. Charles City county, after nearly two hundred and fifty years.
John R. Bland was sixteen at the time of his father's death in 1867. at the age of fifty-four. The lad was at the time a student at Washington I'niversity, St. Louis. His mother having died twelve years before her husband, it fol- lowed as a matter of course that the son should return to the state of his parents' birth. He went to Norfolk with his mother's brother : studied for a year at William and Mary College, and in 1872, when he attained his majority. he went to Baltimore in quest of what might await him in life. He was in the steamship business for eight years, then became secretary of the Merchants' & Manufacturers' Association of Baltimore, a position which enabled him to asso- ciate with men whose acquaintance and friendship were of inestimable value in the furtherance of his future business alms.
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