Helen Jean Burn writes in Betsy Bonaparte (Maryland Historical Society, 2010) about the new city of Baltimore, where William Patterson, father of the “belle of Baltimore,” settled in the late eighteenth century:
Geography had determined the placement of this town far up the Chesapeake Bay, deep into a fertile countryside where crops could be grown and then shipped out. On the west side of the upper bay, the Patapsco River splits into three branches. The northwest branch ends in a small basin. At its 1729 founding, Baltimore Town bordered this basin. On the south side of the basin, later called the inner harbor, was Smith’s Hill, so named because it had been described by the original white explorer of Maryland, John Smith. Along the west edge of the basin ran a trail that became the coastal road between north and south.
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Continuing north, the trail bent around the Baltimore basin, then rose northeast over low hills, to cross the stream that marked the town’s eastern boundary…. This boundary stream, named Jones Falls, was deep enough to accommodate ships, although they could not turn around until a turning basin had been made.
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In the early years, the streets were named after the Maryland colony’s proprietor, Charles Calvert, Lord Baltimore. Charles and Calvert Streets ran north and south; Baltimore Street stretched from the Great Road on the west to Jones Falls on the east. There a market was built, called Marsh Market because of the swampy ground along the stream, and town folk commonly omitted the name of Baltimore Street and instead referred to it as Market Street. Beyond Jones Falls, the land continued eastward along the Patapsco River to a nearby settlement called Fell’s Point. There the water was much deeper than that of the Baltimore basin, and in time Fell’s Point became a site for shipbuilding and a mooring place for ocean-going ships. Yet it was to Baltimore Town’s encircled basin that men with the most money came. Their investments would enable Baltimore to expand, absorb Fell’s Point, and for a time surpass both Philadelphia and Boston.
