National Park Service Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) U.S. Department of the Interior Built to Last No. 2 Monument Square & the Battle Monument (1805 & after, Maximilian Godefroy & others, architects) Excerpt from the full report written by Laurie Ossman, Ph.D., for HABS Originally known as “Courthouse Square,” Monument Square was the site of Baltimore’s first public buildings—a courthouse and jail, built in 1768. In 1805, the city erected a more substantial, brick courthouse on the site of the current courthouse (built 1894-1900), indicating that by the turn of the nineteenth century the square was firmly established as the functional center of civic life. The construc- tion of the Battle Monument in 1815-25 to commemorate the soldiers who had died in the Battle of North Point during the War of 1812 underscored the square’s importance as a symbol of civic identity and pride. The Battle Monument, together with the Washington Monument in nearby Mount Vernon Place, prompted President John Quincy Adams to refer to Baltimore in 1827 as “the monumental city.” Monument Square stands near the Monument Square & the Battle Monument, bird’s-eye view from the southeast. James southwest corner of a 510-acre W. Rosenthal, photographer, Summer 2001. property that was deeded by a series of crown warrants to Thomas Cole ward, appears to have been erected act specified the site at the northern in 1668. The property passed within to discourage Native American terminus of Calvert Street for a new the year to James Todd who, in incursions. Perhaps because no raid courthouse and jail. When, in 1784, 1701, sold the property to Charles was attempted against the settle- the building was raised to allow Carroll. This Charles Carroll, with ment, the wooden fence was plun- Calvert Street to proceed northward, his brother Daniel, petitioned the dered within a few years for fire- the open passageway underneath the Maryland Assembly in 1729 for the wood. The future location of the building was “supplied with stocks, right to sell 60 one-acre lots within courthouse, on a high bluff well pillory, and whipping-post” in a bru- this land by subscription through a within the perimeter stockade, may tal and literal display of authority. privately-held development corpora- well have been recognized as one of tion called The Baltimore Company. the most secure spots within the set- Gradual annexation of additional Governor Calvert signed the agree- tlement. lots of land led, in 1796, to the offi- ment allowing the laying out of a cial incorporation of Baltimore as a town in the midst of Cole’s Harbor By 1752, the village still counted town. This sign of official recogni- in August 1729. only twenty-five houses, one church tion elevated the status of the town, Around 1730, the inhabitants of and two taverns. But waves of its citizens and, by association, its Baltimore erected a wooden stock- immigrants and successful trade led institutions. Within a decade, the ade around the original 60-acre to the passage, in 1768, of a bill elevated courthouse was replaced by charter. It was built and maintained removing the county courthouse a structure that was less novel but by prominent property owners by and jail from Joppa Town to within perhaps more in keeping with the subscription and, as it faced land- the town limits of Baltimore. The dignity and striving for gentility that (continued on page 2) Built to Last: Ten Enduring Landmarks of Baltimore’s Central Business District, Historic American Buildings Survey, Washington, DC, May 2002. Monument Square & the Battle Monument (continued) characterized the new town of North Point made the Battle of Revolutionary War hero John Baltimore at the turn of the 19th Monument Baltimore’s first major Eager Howard). Structures adjacent century. civic art undertaking (the corner- to the square were filled with the stone of Baltimore’s Washington offices of the attorneys who pled Between 1800 and 1816, the popula- Monument was not set until four their cases and filed documents in tion of Baltimore doubled again to months later, in July 1815). The the courthouse. 60,000. This increase partly explains prominent citizens who lived near the building boom that occurred, the courthouse saw an opportunity The complete report for this structure, including especially in the years 1810-16. not only to honor their war dead, bibliographic citations and references, may be More than simple need, however, but also to embellish their neighbor- obtained from the Historic American Buildings the building boom of this period hood with a Parisian-style sculptural Survey beginning in September 2002. Copies of reflected the increasing social strati- column. James Buchanan, one of this information sheet may be downloaded at no fication of Baltimore and the desire the five commissioners appointed to cost from the HABS web site: of its elite to express their status implement the resolution to produce and sophistication through the a monument and install it with great www.cr.nps.gov/habshaer/habs/ accoutrements of culture, including fanfare, lived in a townhouse direct- architecture. ly facing the site for Maximilian Godefroy’s Neo-Classical battle col- During the summer of 2001, the Historic The courthouse, especially with its umn. American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the walk-through jail, was an obsolete, Maryland Historical Trust, in coordination with unsophisticated relic of the frontier On March 1, 1815, a procession led the City of Baltimore’s Commission for town of the previous generation. by a hearse bearing a scale replica of Historical and Architectural Preservation Not surprisingly, in 1805, construc- the column deposited an array of (CHAP) and Preservation Maryland, recorded tion began on a new, more fashion- military and civic dignitaries on the ten historic buildings and sites within Baltimore’s able courthouse to the northwest of site of the 1768 courthouse in mid- Central Business District through large-format the old one (on the site of the cur- Calvert Street, where they placed the photography and original historical research. rent 1895 courthouse). It was con- cornerstone for the Battle The heart of the downtown area and focus of sidered “an immense edifice” for its Monument. Delays in material ship- intensive redevelopment efforts, Baltimore’s time, thereby reasserting govern- ments meant the column was not Central Business District is a designated city his- ment’s status amidst all the fine new completed until 1817. Antonio toric district and home to a diverse array of his- buildings of the town. Capellano’s marble statue of the toric commercial and civic buildings, churches, apotheosis of Baltimore was raised theaters and other landmarks. Many of them The 1805 courthouse faced north, into place, 52 feet above the street, predate the district’s Great Fire of 1904 and not east over the square. In fact, in September 1822. City council chronicle Baltimore’s rise as a financial, com- until 1815 and the raising of the decided to further embellish the col- mercial and civic center. This project, resulting Battle Monument, the square per se umn by adding inscriptions, bas- in more than 150 photographs by Baltimore did not exist except as a gap in the reliefs and various urns and accou- photographer James W. Rosenthal for HABS and street grid where the old courthouse trements. ten detailed architectural histories by Laurie had once straddled Calvert Street. Ossman, PhD., also a Baltimore resident, grew The choice of the old courthouse The genteel connotations of a out of concern about the recent loss of the site for Godefroy’s monument was Monument Square address surely Merchants & Miners Transportation Company probably at least partly pragmatic: it prompted the building of Barnum’s Building at 17 Light Street and other buildings of filled the empty space at the crest of Hotel on the corner of Calvert & architectural distinction in Baltimore. Calvert left by the old courthouse. Fayette Streets in 1826. Visiting dig- nitaries such as President John Ranging chronologically from the Peale Museum By the mid-1820s, the houses near Quincy Adams, celebrities such as (1814) to the Bank of America Building (1929; the courthouse were known as an actress Sarah Bernhardt and soprano formerly the Baltimore Trust Company elite residential enclave. By working Jenny Lind and writers such as Building), and in function from Old St. Paul’s backward from this period, it seems Frances Trollope, Washington Irving Church (1846) to the Gayety Theatre (1906), certain that many of the houses and Charles Dickens were provided the ten landmarks selected for this study illus- were constructed in this area just with state-of-the-art accommoda- trate the architectural diversity of the district after the courthouse was finished. tions, overlooking a monument in a and the myriad forces that have informed the The presence of elite residents may piazza, surrounded by the city’s district’s growth and evolution over time. The also explain why in 1812, so soon most refined persons. Residents of exhibit, launched at the Maryland Historical after the new courthouse was com- the square at the time of the con- Society in May 2002 during National Historic pleted, a separate jail in another struction of Barnum’s Hotel includ- Preservation Month, and the companion walking building three blocks west was com- ed monument commissioner James tour provide a glimpse into the architectural his- missioned. A Buchanan; William Gilmor tory of Baltimore’s Central Business District. It (brother of prominent art collector is hoped that the exhibit and brochure will Following the War of 1812, the and businessman Robert Gilmor, Jr.) encourage further exploration and preservation commission for a monument to the and Benjamin Chew Howard (son of Baltimore’s tremendously rich architectural soldiers who fell in the Battle of heritage.