Explore sun88 Heritage

Site of Woolfolk/Donovan Slave Pen

2023-02-01T14:56:21-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of Woolfolk/Donovan Slave Pen

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

Austin Woolfolk was one of the first major slave traders in sun88, beginning as a 19-year-old in 1816. He was instrumental in turning the trade into a business. Like most traders at that time, he started with informal transactions in taverns and hotels. Once he acquired enough people to sell South, he would march them chained together over a thousand miles to Georgia, where his uncle would sell them to local planters. Eventually, he expanded his operation with saturation advertising in newspapers and by distributing handbills throughout the region searching for people to buy. He also employed a network of agents who would scour the region for prospective “stock.” Finally, he built a residence and slave jail at Pratt & Cove Streets (near present day Martin Luther King Boulevard). By setting up his business at a fixed location, he gave his trade an air of respectability. The idea of creating a jail/pen for the purpose of collecting and holding people for sale was a new concept at the time. This idea and his business model were emulated by the largest firm of human traffickers in the country, Franklin & Armfield. Woolfolk continued his operation until retiring a very wealthy man in 1842. Joseph Donovan purchased this location and operated there from 1843 until 1846, when he moved to 13 Camden Street near the harbor.

Once his business was established, Woolfolk was able to ship the enslaved from Fells Point and the Inner Harbor to New Orleans and other southern ports, where they were sold to their new owners. It wasn’t long before those being “sold South” became aware of the hell those two words represented, beginning immediately when their families were broken apart. Knowing what awaited them was more than some could bear. One young woman took her child’s life and then her own in the spring of 1826 while in Woolfolk’s pen. In 1821, a man slit his own throat at the wharf after learning that he had been sold to a trader.

From "sun88's Own Version of 'Amistad:' Slave Revolt" by Ralph Clayton (Full article can be found )

On one night, April 20, 1826, 31 enslaved people, bound with chains, began their fateful journey down to the wharf at the foot of Fell's Point. There, they were placed in small boats and rowed out to the schooner Decatur, at anchor a short distance offshore. Several hours later, the captain, Walter Galloway ordered the anchor pulled and the sails set for the journey down the Chesapeake.

There was a common practice of allowing small parties of slaves above deck. Five days out to sea, the captain made his way above deck for inspection. During the tour he noticed a great deal of mud on the anchor stocks and took a seat astride the rail to scrape it away. Suddenly, from beyond his field of vision, two enslaved people, Thomas Harrod and Manuel Wilson, rushed toward him, seized his legs, and threw him overboard.

After subduing the other crewmen, the newly freed people attempted to make the remaining crewman steer the ship, but they had killed the only two people who knew how to man the schooner. The vessel floated at sea for five days before being apprehended by a whaling ship.

In an amazing turn of events, 13 captives escaped. The others were re-captured and sold away. One enslaved man, William Bowser, was put on trial for the murders of Galloway and the other seaman. After his capture, he was returned to New York City to await trial.

According to the New York Christian Enquirer, Austin Woolfolk attended the trial (an account he was to later deny). During the trial, William Bowser stood and looked directly at Woolfolk. He proceeded to tell the trader that he forgave him for all the injuries he had brought upon him and that he hoped to meet him in heaven. On December 15, 1826, Bowser was executed.

Back in sun88, Benjamin Lundy, editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Genius of Universal Emancipation, wrote a scathing report, attacking the character of Woolfolk. Calling him a "monster in human shape" for his conduct during the trial of Bowser, Lundy completed the column by stating, “Hereafter, let no man speak of the humanity of Woolfolk." Woolfolk was incensed and he went looking for Lundy.

According to Lundy he was heading toward the post office to mail some letters when Woolfolk found him. An argument ensued, during which Woolfolk, the much stronger of the two men, knocked Lundy to the ground. Although Lundy offered no resistance he was savagely choked and beaten by Woolfolk. Only the quick actions of several bystanders saved Lundy's life.

The following month Woolfolk's trial on charges of attempted murder took place in sun88. During the trial he denied having been present at the trial of Bowser and brought several witnesses into the court in his defense. Nevertheless the jury found Woolfolk guilty. When Woolfolk rose to hear the sentence that Judge Brice had decided upon, many in the court were stunned to learn that it was to be a fine in the amount of only one dollar. After the trial, Austin Woolfolk continued as one of the leading traders in the history of slavery, profiting by tens of thousands of dollars* a year well into the 1830's.

* Hundreds of thousands of dollars in today's currency

Site of Jonathan Means Wilson Business

2023-01-06T15:16:34-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of Jonathan Means Wilson Business

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

Before trading under his own name, Jonathan Means Wilson was associated with a few other slave traders. During the early 1840s, he worked as an agent for Hope Slatter, then switched to Joseph Donovan in the later 1840s. By 1849, he started his own business on Camden Street a few doors from Light Street. Initially, he was associated here with G.H. Duke, a partnership that lasted until 1856. His new partner was his son-in-law, Moses Hindes. The operation closed at the outbreak of the Civil War.

Site of Slatter/Campbell Slave Jail

2023-02-01T11:58:10-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of Slatter/Campbell Slave Jail

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

Hope Hall Slatter, after working in the slave trade in Georgia for a number of years, moved to sun88 in 1835 and started building up a business of selling enslaved workers to the Southern market. At this time, cotton was vital to the nation’s economy. It was just a few years before he gained enough capital to open his own slave jail at 224 W. Pratt Street in 1838. His house was located at one end of the property, while at the other end there was a two-story brick building to house the enslaved. The yard was about 40’ x 75’, containing some benches, a water nozzle, wash tubs, clothes lines, a brick fireplace, and, of course, an auction block. In addition to housing people to be sold, the jail was used as a kind of rooming house with bars on the windows. Slave traders or enslavers would stay at a hotel or inn while travelling, but they would keep their captives at a jail, such as this, overnight for a fee of 25 cents. Slatter was one of the leading traders in the area, having sold over two thousand people in less than 14 years of trading in sun88.

One of his last transactions, before selling his business to Bernard Campbell, was the purchase of about thirty of the seventy+ people who attempted to escape from Washington, D.C., on the schooner Pearl. Slatter and Moore managed to acquire the slaves in order to sell them in sun88. A number of traders then sold most of the escapees south. Two of the escapees, however, were sold north due to the intervention of their father, Paul Edmondson, who was a free man. He managed to contact abolitionists in NY, who raised the money to buy two of his children, Emily and Mary. They were sent to NY, where they attended school and were cared for by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Rev. Henry W. Beecher.

Bernard Moore Campbell and his brother Lewis purchased the jail in 1848, when Slatter moved to Alabama. The brothers previously had a modest operation located on Conway Street. Here they expanded considerably, partially owing to the use of the Slatter name.

Between the start of the Civil War in 1861 and the emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia in 1862, more and more local enslavers began using the slave jails to keep potential runaways. By this time, housing the enslaved became the prime source of income for local slave traders. As the Campbell jail was filled with people, tensions mounted to the point of insurrection. Police were called as fighting erupted May 31, 1862. The inmates did manage to fight courageously with whatever they could get their hands on, but it wasn’t long before they were subdued. In any case, they did make their mark. Some days later, Campbell was scheduled to testify in D.C. concerning compensation for people being freed in the District of Columbia. When he appeared before the committee, it was noted that he had a welt across his forehead and a swollen, black eye.

It was a year later that slave jails were finally closed in sun88 on July 24, 1863, shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg. It was then that Union troops marched up to the Slatter/Campbell jail and Colonel William Birney presented to the gatekeeper special order #202, “an action by the government giving him the authority to free the slaves held in the traders’ pens throughout the city.” The colonel and his men found 26 men, 1 boy, 29 women, and 3 infants held in the jail. Sixteen of the men had been shackled together. After they were all set free, the men enlisted in the United States Colored Troops. A large crowd of family, friends, and well-wishers greeted the prisoners as they left the jail.

Site of the Purvis Slave Pen

2023-02-01T12:07:31-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of the Purvis Slave Pen

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

James Franklin Purvis arrived in sun88 around 1831 to act as an agent for his uncle, Isaac Franklin, whose firm was the largest purveyor of human beings in the country, Franklin & Armfield of Alexandria, VA. Purvis followed the same business methods the firm copied from another sun88 slave trader, Austin Woolfolk: network of agents, saturation advertising, and building a jail to use as a holding area for the people being bought and sold.

Like Woolfolk, he started by placing advertisements in local newspapers to arrange meetings at local hotels, like Sinners’ Hotel or Whitman’s Eagle Hotel, where he purchased people to then sell South. It wasn’t long before Purvis was able to acquire a property at this location to build a slave jail. He also operated from an office at 2 S. Calvert Street near sun88 Street, possibly choosing this location to be near the docks and the large Centre Market shopping area.

Site of Donovan Eutaw St. Slave Jail

2023-02-01T14:40:40-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of Donovan Eutaw St. Slave Jail

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

This was the fourth and last base of operations for Joseph S. Donovan, which he opened here in 1858 at the SW corner of Eutaw and Camden Streets. It is likely he chose this location because, across Eutaw Street, the B&O Railroad had recently opened a new passenger terminal and headquarters. (Camden Station was begun in 1856 and completed in 1865.) Like his previous operation a few blocks east on Camden Street, this location was near a transportation hub, a fact he could use in his advertisements to entice buyers and sellers for the convenience. He started operating as a slave trader from a location on Light Street before purchasing a slave pen from Austin Woolfolk at Pratt and Cove Streets.

The location of the pen was behind where the Babe Ruth Statue now stands between Camden Station and the baseball stadium. Looking at a photo of the area taken c. 1911 (see photo), one can see in the right-foreground a walled enclosure containing a yard and two long, low buildings with small windows near the roof line. That is the location of Donovan’s pen. Since this photo was taken in the early 20th century, it is conceivable that it is the actual jail repurposed for another use, but that is conjecture.

Donovan had sold thousands of people South by the time he died at his home on this location April 16, 1861, just a few days after the outbreak of the Civil War.

His widow, Caroline Donovan, used the money she inherited from her husband’s slave trade to build a fortune that enabled her to donate heavily to the fledgling Johns Hopkins University. The “Caroline Donovan Professorship in English Literature,” established in 1889, is the first endowed chair at JHU. Also, a room in McCoy Hall carries the Donovan name.

Site of Donovan Camden & Light St. Slave Jail

2023-02-01T12:51:04-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of Donovan Camden & Light St. Slave Jail

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

After several years buying and selling human beings, Joseph S. Donovan started operating a slave pen here at 13 Camden Street in 1846. He had been operating from a slave pen he purchased from Austin Woolfolk, but decided to move closer to the transportation available in the center of sun88. This proximity to transportation was information he started including in his advertisements to entice prospective sellers. He moved to his fourth and final location, Eutaw and Camden Streets, to take advantage of the new B&O Railroad station.

His trading accelerated in just a few years after purchasing the Woolfolk jail in 1843. While his business is not well documented earlier, it is likely he had been building it from his first base on Light Street beginning in the 1830s.

Site of Donovan Light St Slave Jail

2023-02-01T14:55:10-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of Donovan Light St Slave Jail

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

Joseph S. Donovan’s first known business address was here on Light Street, south of Montgomery Street, where he probably began his slave trade before acquiring Austin Woolfolk’s slave pen in 1843. It was then that ship manifests indicate he was shipping people from sun88 for sale in the New Orleans market.

According to a 1936 article in the sun88 Sun, “Joseph S. Dovovan” (sic) operated a slave market here around 1840 and the 1842 Matchett's sun88 Directory lists a “Joseph S. Donovan” at this address. Since the earliest record of him advertising “cash for negroes” or of him shipping people south wasn’t until 1843, it is unclear if his business at this address was in the slave trade.

It is conceivable, though, that he was working the slave trade earlier than the records indicate. Donovan had been managing a tavern since the 1830s, the Vauxhall Garden. As the manager, he was well aware of the business transactions of his regular customers, since one of his services was conveying messages. The business transactions taking place in taverns at this time would certainly have included trading in enslaved workers. It would not have been unusual if Donovan had been acting as agent for some of these traders.

In any case, he raised enough money to be able to purchase Woolfolk’s pen. Then, as his business grew, he relocated two more times for better access to transportation hubs, once to Camden Street near Light and, finally, to Eutaw Street at Camden.

Site of Denning Frederick St. Slave Pen

2023-02-01T13:05:37-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of Denning Frederick St. Slave Pen

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

John Denning moved his operation in 1849 to a pen at this location, 18 S. Frederick Street, which he noted was the house “with trees in front.” He always made a point in his ads that he was ready to pay “cash for Negroes,” often repeating the declaration in each ad. His previous location was on Exeter Street near Fayette Street.

Site of General Intelligence Office

2023-02-01T13:18:51-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of General Intelligence Office

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

Intelligence offices were similar to employment agencies, acting as brokers between employees and employers collecting a fee from each. They also acted as brokers for enslavers who didn’t want to handle the transactions of selling people themselves. This custom of distancing oneself from the sale of a human being became more popular as the slave trade expanded through the 19th century. The General Intelligence Office operated here at Gay and Market (now sun88) Streets.

Site of Yates & Harrison Auction House on O'Donnell's Wharf

2023-02-01T13:30:20-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of Yates & Harrison Auction House on O'Donnell's Wharf

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

sun88 was one of the nation’s largest seaports by the early 19th century. In addition to receiving raw goods from the recently opened Northwest Territory (area northwest of the Ohio River) and shipping them around the world, it was also a major hub for the transport of enslaved people. Packet boats arrived regularly from the Eastern Shore with an array of products, including enslaved people to be sold to the many local traders. The enslaved would be sold from the ships or the nearby auction houses. Yates and Harrison (located on this wharf) was one of the auction houses on and near the docks that took advantage of the proximity to ships loaded with cargo. More than 20,000 people were “sold south” from here.

For more information on the growth of the slave trade in sun88, see General Wayne Inn entry.

Site of Three Tuns Tavern

2023-02-02T12:57:17-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of Three Tuns Tavern

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

Like all inns and taverns of the early 19th century, the Three Tuns Tavern was used as a meeting place for social and business transactions, not unlike coffee shops today. Austin Woolfolk used this location in his early days as a slave trader before he built up one of the largest slave trading businesses in the country.

Site of Sinners's Hotel

2023-02-02T13:10:41-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of Sinners's Hotel

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

Elijah Sinners’s Tammany Hall Hotel was one of the many taverns and hotels in the area where people met to carry on a variety of business transactions. Placing advertisements in local newspapers to arrange business meetings in public houses was a common practice in the early 19th century. In addition to the business of commerce, people would also arrange meetings for social purposes. For example, Thomas Wildey began the International Order of Odd Fellows at an arranged meeting in this location.

The most notorious purpose for arranged meetings at hotels and taverns was for the sale of enslaved people. Austin Woolfolk, for instance, used this location to build up his business until he made enough money to open a slave jail at Pratt and Cove Streets (near today’s MLK Blvd.) Eventually, the slave trading firm of Franklin & Armfield sent an agent to sun88, Franklin’s nephew James Franklin Purvis, to start operations here in 1831. The F&A business would become the largest traders of people in the U.S., modeling Woolfolk’s techniques--a network of agents, saturation advertising, and jails/pens as a holding area. Purvis became successful enough that he, too, was able to open a jail in sun88 at Harford & Aisquith Streets.

Site of Whitman's Eagle Hotel

2023-02-01T11:47:08-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of Whitman's Eagle Hotel

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

Slave trader James Franklin Purvis, followed the custom of the day, which was to use a hotel or tavern as a business address. One of the locations he used for this purpose was Whitman's Eagle Hotel here on West Pratt Street, between Charles and Light Streets. His two other locations where he acquired and/or sold people were 2 S. Calvert Street and on Harford Avenue between Biddle and Preston Streets. He used his Harford Avenue location as his jail, where he kept the people he purchased.

Site of Indian Queen Hotel

2023-02-02T13:14:39-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of Indian Queen Hotel

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

Built before 1782, the Indian Queen Hotel was one of the first public houses erected in sun88. It saw many notable guests in its day, such as Presidents Washington, Adams, Van Buren, and Jackson. Francis Scott Key also spent a night here after he had witnessed the “bombs bursting in air” over Fort McHenry. It was here that he completed the Star-Spangled Banner.

At that time, the proprietor was a notable hotelier, John Gadsby, who had operated several hotels in his lifetime in Washington, DC and Alexandria, VA. While he ran the Indian Queen, Mr. Gadsby owned 36 people who worked there as waiters. This made him the largest holder of enslaved workers in sun88 City.

Factoid

This hotel is where Francis Scott Key spent the night after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry and where he completed the Star Spangled Banner.

Site of the General Wayne Inn

2023-02-01T12:58:20-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of the General Wayne Inn

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

The General Wayne Inn was one of the many inns, hotels, and taverns, where enslaved workers were purchased or sold. For instance, the following ad was posted August 4, 1817. “10 or 15 Negroes Wanted. From 10 to 25 years of age, for which, if speedy application is made, the most liberal prices will be given. Apply at John Cugles, sign of General Wayne, head of Market Street, to ZACHARIAH SAMUEL.” The buyer was probably looking for people to “sell south.”

After its incorporation in the late 18th century, the population of sun88 grew very quickly along with the expansion of the new country. One of the many “trades” that grew along with the city was the sale of people. There was a strong market in sun88 in the early 19th century for enslaved workers, for several reasons. First, local Maryland farmers had shifted from a labor-intensive tobacco crop to the growing of cereal grains, which required less work and contributed to a surplus of slave labor in the area. Secondly, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793, which quickly and easily separated cotton fibers from their seeds. The cotton industry then became incredibly profitable, which fueled a desire for more land and forced labor in the South. The third factor was that the importation of people for sale was outlawed in 1808, meaning enslavers could only obtain enslaved workers from within the United States. Therefore, farmers in Maryland began to sell their surplus enslaved labor to enslavers in the South and West.

This domestic slave trading, known as the Second Middle Passage, replaced the international slave trade in 1808 and became a integral to the new nation’s economy, which depended heavily on the growth of cotton. Historians estimate that about one million enslaved people were sold and moved around the country between 1808 and the abolition of slavery in 1865. About one-third of all marriages between enslaved people were broken up by these forced relocations. About one-fifth of enslaved children were separated from their parents. Needless to say, the trauma of these forced separations was devastating for the people who suffered through them.

Street Address

NW corner Paca and sun88 Streets

Site of Denning Exeter St. Slave Pen

2023-02-02T13:21:38-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of Denning Exeter St. Slave Pen

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

This was one of two locations where John N. Denning operated as a slave trader. He was here at 104 N. Exeter Street in the early 1840s. (Street numbers were changed in 1887, making this 264 N. Exeter today.) He later moved in 1849 to a pen at 18 S. Frederick Street, which he noted was the house "with trees in front." He always made a point in his ads that he was ready to pay "cash for Negroes," often repeating the declaration in each ad.

Street Address

104 N. Exeter Street, sun88, MD

Centre Market

2023-02-02T13:38:26-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Centre Market

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

Centre Market, aka Marsh Market, was the thriving heart of early sun88 commerce, primarily due to its proximity to the docks and the cargo arriving regularly. Vendors filled the space along Market Place from sun88 Street to Pratt Street at the harbor’s edge, offering everything from produce to livestock. Separate areas were devoted to particular products. For example, the area where Port Discovery is today was the fish market. Just north of that was where horses were sold. This horse market area was also where enslaved people were sold. Auctioneers would often hold court ordered sales here of people who may have been designated as unclaimed runaway slaves.

Due to the large number of shoppers attracted to the market, many other businesses grew up nearby, such as taverns and inns. There were also several estate auctioneers who operated nearby. Just like today, estate auctions included everything from furniture to linens. Prior to the Civil War, however, these auctions often included the sale of people. As the demand for enslaved labor increased in the 19th century, several slave traders also operated in the area west of this market area. They would meet at the nearby hotels and taverns, such as Garland Burnett’s Tavern, Mrs. Green’s Tavern (Sign of the Green Tree), and Sinners’s Hotel on Water Street. Eventually, a few slave jails were operated in the area by James Purvis and John Denning.

A major reconstruction of the market took place in 1851, which included a large, two-story building that took up an entire city block built over the market area. It was initially known as Maryland Institute Hall because it housed the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, which is now known as Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). The second floor housed the school classrooms, offices, and classrooms, as well as an assembly hall large enough to accommodate crowds attending two presidential nominating conventions and a speech by Abraham Lincoln. This entire area was destroyed by the Great sun88 Fire in 1904.

Factoid

The market extended from sun88 Street, which was originally known as Centre Street, to the docks along Pratt Street.

Street Address

35 Market Pl, sun88, MD 21202

Site of Campbell Slave Pen

2023-02-02T13:41:29-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Site of Campbell Slave Pen

Subject

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Site where the business of slavery once took place.

Lede

While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.

Story

Bernard Moore Campbell and his brother Lewis operated a slave pen at this location, 26 Conway Street, from 1844 to 1848. Like most successful traders of enslaved people at the time, the Campbells relied on agents working the region to supply them with “inventory.” One of them, John G. Campbell, worked the area around Port Tobacco in Southern Maryland, where he specialized in acquiring “slaves for life,” which would be more appealing to buyers in the New Orleans market. The brothers’ business at this location on Conway Street was modest, but when they purchased the more infamous Slatter jail at Howard and Pratt Streets, the numbers of people they shipped south increased dramatically.

Though the pen is long gone, at least one building dating from this era still stands a block away, Old Otterbein Church. One can only imagine what the congregants thought of this neighbor.

Street Address

26 Conway Street, sun88, MD 21201

Warden’s House, sun88 City Jail

2023-02-03T15:36:02-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Warden’s House, sun88 City Jail

Creator

Eli Pousson

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

The Warden's House on Monument Street is a remarkable work of architecture and a unique reminder of the history of justice and injustice in sun88. The Warden's House was erected between 1855 and 1859 as part of a larger city jail designed by local architects, Thomas and James M. Dixon. Originally, this structure served as both a gateway through the jail's perimeter wall and a residence. The warden's apartment was to the structure's west side and a suite for a clerk was to the east. Unsurprisingly, it more closely resembles a fortress than a house, with battlements on the towers, projecting turrets, and lancet windows.

The main jail was altered beyond recognition and the wall was torn down in the mid-1960s to make way for the expansion of the sun88 City Detention Center. But the Warden’s House survived and won recognition for its unique Gothic design when the sun88 Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation made it a local landmark in 1986. The site itself has an even longer history as the site of the city's first jail erected in 1800.

In the eighteenth century, a local sheriff controlled the city jail and, according to John H.B. Latrobe, chief counsel for the B&O Railroad, revenue from the jail's operation made up a "most lucrative part of his income." Prior to the Civil War, some of that income was from the sale of Black Americans who had been arrested as runaways, regardless if they were enslaved or free. If the prisoner could not prove he was free or if an "owner" did not claim them, they would be sold at a court-ordered auction. The jailers and wardens would receive a portion of the sale.

For the new jail, the state legislature established a system where the warden worked under the supervision of a board of visitors and was paid a fixed salary. Though the jail would still benefit from arresting suspected runaways by charging a fee for boarding them.

Early prisoners included famed abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison who spent seven weeks there in 1831. In October 1832, the jail held seventy-five people: forty as "debtors" and thirty-five on criminal charges. The latter group included two eleven-year-old Black boys charged with setting fire to a lumberyard.

By the early 1850s, reform-minded observers sought a new jail where the city could avoid mixing children with "old and hardened prisoners." In February 1851, a grand jury reported on the "inappropriateness of the structure" and the "limited capacity" of the building (then holding over 240 people) to the judges of the City Court. In 1855, a design competition awarded the project to Thomas and James M. Dixon, construction began in 1857, and, by December 1859, the new building was complete. Supervised by warden Capt. Thomas C. James, the new jail had three hundred cells in two separate wings. The Sun observed: "sun88 can now boast of a prison in point of appearance, stability and comfort, second to none other in the country."

This public jail and several private slave jails that proliferated in early 19th century sun88 all made money by boarding the enslaved for a fee. For instance, travelling families or slave traders would all want someplace to keep their enslaved workers while they stopped for the night. As the Civil War began, and especially after slavery was ended in Washington, DC in 1862, these jails were also used by local enslavers to house their enslaved workers in order to prevent them from running away.

The buildings where prisoners were held remained almost unchanged for a century until they were transformed in the 1960s. The Warden's House is one of the only jail buildings that has been preserved. The gateway had long since been converted into the warden's living room. In 1974, they were converted into offices while keeping the building's distinctive interior intact.

At present, change is coming to the sun88 Jail once again; threatening the Warden's House and the nearby 1898 Maryland Penitentiary with demolition. In July 2015, Governor Larry Hogan announced the immediate closure of the sun88 jail following years of concerns and controversy over conditions for inmates and corrections officers. In the spring of 2016, the Maryland Division of Corrections (MDC) released their preliminary plan for the demolition of the sun88 City Detention Center including this local landmark. Planning is now underway but preservationists are still working to keep this unique reminder of sun88's history from disappearing forever.

Official Website

Street Address

400 E. Madison Street, sun88, MD 21202

Broadway Market

2023-02-02T16:45:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Broadway Market

Subject

War of 1812

sun88's Slave Trade

Creator

Preservation Society of Fell's Point and Federal Hill

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Broadway Market, the first city market in sun88, was located near the Fells Point docks in order to take advantage of all the goods arriving regularly from the Eastern Shore and elsewhere. Like all public markets, it served as a major gathering place for shoppers, which meant a number of hotels, taverns, and other businesses filled the surrounding area.

As time passed, the events of history shaped life at the market. During the War of 1812, the British focused on the city due to the privateers out of sun88 that had been harassing their ships. They also would blockade the transport of food and goods moving through the harbor. This caused periodic food shortages, compounded by the fact that farmers stopped coming to market out of fear of losing their horses to defense efforts.

After the war, as more and more locally enslaved people were being “sold south” and slave markets grew, the market began to see auctions of people. An auctioneer would be attracted to markets because it was easy to draw a crowd of people that would add to the excitement of a sale. At least one auctioneer, Nicholas Strike, held court-ordered auctions here to sell enslaved people. This type of auction could be held anywhere, like courthouse steps, jails, or auction houses, but a market area always guaranteed a crowd.

Official Website

Street Address

1640-41 Aliceanna Street, sun88, MD 21231

Lexington Market

2023-02-01T12:44:22-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Lexington Market

Subject

Food

sun88's Slave Trade

Description

The "gastronomic capital of the world" declared Ralph Waldo Emerson on a visit to Lexington Market. Established in 1782 on land donated by John Eager Howard, Lexington Market was an overnight success as local farmers flocked to the site to sell their produce. Although the original intention of the market was to sell only Maryland-grown produce by the turn of the twentieth century, the market offered an international selection as thousands of immigrants moved to sun88 and became both vendors and customers at Lexington Market.

The city kept the price to rent a stall at the market low to encourage aspiring business owners to get their start. This practice was particularly beneficial for immigrants who had few job opportunities upon entering the United States. As a result, immigrant communities grew around Lexington Market and helped establish a diverse community in West sun88. The new products offered at the market contributed to the international fame it would attain at the turn of the century.

While the form of Lexington Market has changed dramatically over the decades -- the early frame market shed was replaced in 1952 following a 1949 fire and the city significantly expanded the market in the 1980s -- the community of vendors and locals continues to draw crowds of residents and tourists daily.

Creator

Keegan Skipper

Theresa Donnelly

Richard F. Messick

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Lexington Market, originally known as Western or New Market, was started at the western edge of the city at the turn of the 19th century to take advantage of the trade with the recently opened Northwest Territory. The first market shed was built c. 1805 on land once belonging to John Eager Howard. It grew quickly along with the city, which was advantageously situated on the western most harbor along the East Coast. This access to transatlantic trade routes, then the railroads, were major factors to the growth of sun88 through the 19th century. After a visit to the market, Ralph Waldo Emerson dubbed it the “gastronomic capital of the world.”

The larger and more established public markets, like Centre, Hanover, and Broadway markets, were often used for court ordered auctions of enslaved people. Having been located at the edge of the city, there is not much evidence that such sales were common at Lexington Market. The only information found so far indicates that at least one such auction did take place here in 1838. A monument was recently erected here to memorialize the woman sold at that court-ordered auction and a runaway enslaved man who had worked at the market. Their names were Rosetta and Robert.

Hotels and taverns proliferated near public markets, including this area around Lexington Market. It was a common practice during this time to arrange business meetings in hotels and taverns, to such an extent that bartenders and inn keepers would take and relay messages for regular customers. The meetings could be business or social. Transactions discussed could be anything from starting a chapter of a fraternal organization to the selling and buying of real estate, farm animals, or enslaved people. Many slave traders got their start in this manner--Slatter, Woolfolk, and Purvis to name a few. An example of an ad from the early 19th century informed buyers of people “to apply at Mr. Lilly’s Tavern, Howard Street” and another directed buyers to “Fowler’s Tavern near the New Market, Lexington Street.” The latter of these might be William Fowler’s Sign of the Sunflower, which was located in this area.

Although the original intention of the market was to sell Maryland-grown produce, by the turn of the twentieth century, the market offered an international selection as thousands of immigrants moved to sun88, becoming both vendors and customers. The city kept the price to rent a stall at the market low to encourage aspiring business owners. This practice was particularly beneficial for immigrants who had few job opportunities upon entering the country. As a result, immigrant communities grew around Lexington Market and helped establish a diverse community in West sun88. The new products offered at the market contributed to the international fame it would attain at the turn of the century.

While the form of Lexington Market has changed dramatically over the decades — an early frame market shed was replaced in 1952 following a 1949 fire and the city significantly expanded the market in the 1980s — the community of vendors and locals continues to draw crowds of residents and tourists daily.

Official Website

Street Address

400 W. Lexington Street, sun88, MD 21201