The undersigned, interested in the development of the
trade and manufactures of the City of Baltimore, respect¬
fully pray your Honorable Body to remove the Long Bridge
from Ferry Point to the Anne Arundel Shore, as excessively
detrimental to the shipping facilities of the city. Its place
could adequately be supplied by a steam ferry.
The undersigned assume that these shipping facilities
are of the greatest importance to the city, and that, if prop¬
erly cared for and maintained, there is scarcely any limit
to the development of trade and to the prosperity which
they will induce. Water is by far the cheapest highway.
There is no enterprise of moment projected to increase the
wealth of the city which .does not immediately connect
itself with access to tidewater. Nor does any scene present
so mournful an aspect of decadence as a deserted port.
To obtain an idea of the situation of Baltimore in this
respect, let one represent to himself a sheet of water rounded
slightly on the right and left sides, and about two miles
each way, into which from its upper left hand corner is
projected obliquely a peninsula of land of about half its
area somewhat in the shape of a lady's boot, its heel and
its toe thrust closely toward the sides of the basin, and
forming on each side a strait or narrows.
All this water is the true harbor of Baltimore.
The water to the northeast of our boot is the (so-called)
harbor, and the basin on the west is the Middle Branch and
on the south the main river. The boot itself may be re¬
garded as a natural jetty or wharf, very considerably
2
increasing the available navigable advantages of the port,
as an artificial jetty is intended to do on a smaller scale.
The area of the so-called harbor and basin lying west of a
line from the northeast corner of Elevator B to the outer
corner of the Atlantic Wharf, south of Boston street and just
east of Harris's Creek, is about 470 acres, or nearly three-
quarters of a square mile, and its frontage is substantially
all occupied.
The Middle Branch has an area of Iti'i acres, or about the
same as the harbor and basin. .The total frontage on the
Middle Branch is 24,495 feet, or nearly five miles, of
which
Ranstead's wharves occupy 1,430 feet.
Baker Bros., Diggs & McCullough occupy.... 600 "
Consolidated Gas Company, C. Hart Smith,
Slingluif & Co. and J. J. Thomson occupy. 1,500 "
Wallace King occupies 160 "
Md. D. P. & B. Block Company occupies 160 "
Total , 3,850 feet.
The average depth of water between Moale's Point and
the old glass house wharf and Ferry Point is twelve feet.
If one were asked now how the navigable area of the
port of Baltimore might be increased, he would probably
suggest that the heel and toe of our imaginary boot should
be removed, a strait or narrows being a nuisance to navi¬
gation. If he were told, however, that a bridge seven-
eighths of a mile in length had been built so as to effec¬
tually close and obstruct the ^liddle Branch and the
débouché of the main river, he would hold up his hands in
respectful amazement.
In favor of the continuance of the bridge, it may be
alleged, and this is all that can be alleged, that it connects
Baltimore with Anne Arundel County, and accommodates
the trade between the city and the county, which, as to
the county, consists of market produce mainly, and as to
the city, of farmers'supplies and manures.
But not two miles west of the road leading south through
Anne Arundel County is the old Annapolis road, reaching
Baltimore by Harman's bridge. Again, about the same
distance west of it runs tlie Annapolis and Baltimore Short
Line Railroad. It is scarcely too much to say that this
railroad must in the very near future absorb nearly all the
carriage of produce from the fifth district of Anne Arundel
County, which is the nearest to the city. At any rate, at
present at least one-half of the produce of the fifth district
is conveyed to Baltimore by the old Annapolis road and
the railroad.
But what is the population and what the traffic which
are to be accommodated by this bridge ? In 1880 the
population of the whole fifth district of Anne Arundel
County was only 2,464 persons all told, and as in 1870 it
Avas 2,218 persons, it is not likely that any greater ratio of
increase of population has since existed. The third dis¬
trict of Anne Arundel County, which is to the east of
Curtis Bay, and may be considered as separated from the
fifth district, was in 1880, 3,165 persons, and in 1870, 3,103
persons. As to the trade, the estimated value of all the
farm products of the whole of Anne Arundel County, sold,
consumed and on hand, was, in 1879, only $1,540,095. , The
value of the market gardening of Anne ArundeL County
sold in 1879 was only $24,067, and of orchard produce
$114,631. The whole county produced in the same year
35,492 bushels of sweet potatoes and 44,379 bushels of
white potatoes, 155,323 eggs and about 70,000 fowls. The
whole garden produce sold in Baltimore in the same year
from all quarters Avas only $668,000. It is safe to say that
these quantities and figures have not been very materially
increased in any way since 1880. How much of the whole
is to be attributed to the fifth district, which runs down
about five miles from the Patapsco, is not very important.
4
But that district is not the richest nor the most populous
nor the most productive of the five districts into which
the county is divided, and at least half of its wealth
enters Baltimore by other channels than the Long Bridge,
a large quantity, as is well knovAm, of the products of the
county being conveyed to Baltimore directly by water.
What does it cost the city to maintain the bridge ? The
City Commissioner estimates that it costs annually to main¬
tain this bridge at least $6,792, or the interest of $200,000.
Besides, it is estimated that the cost of dredging out
deposits in the Middle Branch and at the draw of the bridge,
occasioned mainly if not entirely by the bridge, is $10,000.
And therefore about $17,000 is to be added to the cost of
the market and other produce brought in from Anne Arun¬
del County over the Long Bridge, every peck of which
might just as readily travel the other way.
On the other hand, the city finds it most reasonable to
expend large sums of money for maintaining deep water
in the so-called harbor proper so that deep draught vessels
may pass into it. Why neglect an equal navigable area on
the other side adjacent to the improving part of the city ?
From its shape the basin of the Middle Branch is more
easily dredged to a considerable depth and maintained at
that depth than the curved lower harbor and basin. It is
said wharf property is almost valueless in Baltimore. The
owners of the coal piers at Locust Point, where considerable
depths of water are constantly maintained, could give a
different answer. But the question is not whether one
warehouse on a wharf will or will not bring a good price.
What we want to see established in Baltimore, for which
her abundant water power and the near-by deposits of as
good coal as any in the world will fit her, is manufacturing
establishments, which require several acres, not several feet
of ground.
Nowhere can these be accommodated on tidewater in or
near Baltimore but on the Middle Branch. There almost
5-
five miles of unoccupied water front invite the capitalist
but he is driven away by this bridge, through which deep
draught vessels cannot pass. The N. C. E. R. find it worth
their while to occupy with extensive improvements the
Canton side of the harbor. The B. & O. R. R. is crowded
down on Locust Point, and actually speaks of transferring
their heavy traffic to Curtis Bay, a harbor seven miles from
the city, exposed in the winter to northeast winds, and
likely during any ordinary winter to be blocked entirely
by ice, and with a bar being formed continually across its
mouth, because of want of room, when within one quarter
of a mile of Camden Station is the head of a basin which
might easily be made navigable for the largest vessels, and
where the natural terminal of the road should be, as is evi¬
denced by its lines encompassing it on the northeast and
west. Why sacrifice the southwestern part of Baltimoi'e to
the fifth district of Anne Arundel county? If Baltimore's
grain and coffee trade is to be brought back, if lines of
steamers are to run to foreign countries, if the Chesapeake
and Delaware Canal is ever to be made, if manufactures are
ever to be established here, we want water room ; we do
not want half of our available navigable area shut in by an
obstacle which it is gravely proposed to make permanent.
The trifiing and perishable commodities of Anne Arundel
county are as dust in the balance to the trade and wealth
which not prudence, nor foresight, but an ordinary use of
natural advantages at our very door would bring to us.
(Signed)
South Baltimore Co.
W. H. Whitridge, Pres.
J. J. Alexander, Pres.
George's CreekCoal& Iron Co.
A. Hoen & Co.
Diggs Bros.
Pitcher & Creager,
For Cochran-Oler Ice Co.
W. H. Oler, Pres.
The Tunis Lumber Co.
E. L. Tunis, Pres.
Robt. G. Hofeman, '
6
John a. Whitridge,
Baker Bros. & Co.
John Gill,
W. Knight Sanford,
Pierre C. Dugan,
Cumberland Dugan,
B. G. Ferine,
Chas. F. Diggs,
Francis AVhite,
Simon J. Marten et,
Augustus Albert,
John Biemiller,
John Kern, Jr. & Co.
Wm. E. Wood & Co.
Chas. F. Eanstead,
Swindell Bros.
Newbold & Sons, '
Wm. a. Tottle & Co.
Wm. King & Biio.
Henry Seim & Co.
Burns, Russell & Co.,
C. Morton Stewart,
Wm. a. Moale,
Louis MoLane,
W. N. Wyeth,
J. Holmes Whiteley,
L. H. Miller,
Miller Safe & Ironworks.
Young 0. Wilson & Son.
M'm. H. Evans.