Broadway, Fells Point

Baltimore Guide Book

Fells Point's geography largely determined its function. A narrow, hook-shaped peninsula located about a mile from central Baltimore and jutting into a deep portion of the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River, it forms a natural seaport.

Founding and Expansion
By the 1750s Baltimore's basin (now known as the Inner Harbor) began to fill up with silt, making it far more difficult for the large sailing ships of that era to navigate its waters. At the same time, Edward Fell, son of a prosperous ship carpenter, planned a new real estate development on family land then known as Fell's Prospect. By 1763 he offered lots for sale in what is today Fells Point. Many of the first purchasers were maritime tradesmen such as Benjamin Nelson of Cecil County, who built a shipyard on the Philpot Street lot he purchased in 1764. Nelson, Fell, and the others who populated this area were well aware that it promised to replace the old harbor as Baltimore's chief port.

Plan of the Town of Baltimore

Maryland Historical Society

Over the next century Fells Point thrived. Open space filled quickly with businesses and densely packed housing. The population rose from roughly 700 in 1776 to well over 3,000 by 1796, at least a third of whom were directly involved in the process of making and sailing ships as shipyard owners, sail makers, riggers, carpenters, joiners, captains, pilots, sailors, and common laborers. Other residents, such as innkeepers (there were at least 43 by 1796), grocers, ship chandlers, revenue officers, and prostitutes provided goods and services to these maritime workers. During the American Revolution the need for ships and the destruction of the old shipbuilding center in Virginia's Hampton Roads spurred Fells Point's maritime ascent, as did naval ship orders in the 1790s and during the War of 1812. Nineteenth-century Fells Point craftsmen were instrumental in perfecting the clipper ships for which Baltimore would become world famous.

As a result of its maritime function, Fells Point became a distinctly plebeian, ethnically diverse neighborhood, generally reflecting the social composition of the trans-Atlantic maritime world. Those wealthy merchants who had settled in Fells Point abandoned it for the more socially prestigious neighborhoods of central Baltimore. The artisans and sailors who pushed out their employees did not become wealthy, but they continued to flow into the neighborhood from other parts of Maryland and around the world because the intense concentration of maritime activity allowed them to cobble together enough work to survive.

Immigrants flooded in from Germany, Ireland, Scotland, the West Indies, and, by the later nineteenth century, Poland. Enslaved African Americans often worked in the shipyards and as house servants. Frederick Douglass was the most famous example. He lived on Fells Point twice: first as a young household slave on both Aliceanna and Philpot Streets from 1826 to 1832, and then in Fells Street as a shipyard worker from 1836 to 1838. It was from Fells Point that he escaped to freedom in 1838.

Decline and Renaissance
After the Civil War, Fells Point's wharves were too small for many of the new steamships, and with the decline of sail power its days were numbered. Newer Baltimore ports, most notably Locust Point and, later, Sparrows Point and Dundalk, were developed to accommodate larger vessels. The arrival of the last full-rigged commercial ship in Fells Point during World War II marked the effective end of Fells Point as a significant port.

As shipping activity dwindled, Fells Point visibly declined. Original structures were torn down and replaced with warehouses and light industry. By the 1960s many of these factories had shut down, and the federal and state governments planned to condemn much of the neighborhood to make way for a crosstown expressway. In this activist era, such plans spurred community organization. To fight the highway, residents began to promote Fells Point as a unique, architecturally and historically significant location, eventually gaining the neighborhood designation as a National Registered Historic District in 1969. By 1973 community activists assisted by then-councilwoman Barbara Mikulski defeated the highway proposal and granted the old port a new lease on life.

Since then, Fells Point has steadily gentrified as old warehouses have been converted into condominiums, historic homes have been renovated, and new townhomes have been constructed. By the 1990s it had become one of Baltimore City's most desirable and most expensive residential communities. But through all these changes Fells Point's harborfront location has remained crucial to its development. Now valued more for ambience and vistas than for its connection to the Atlantic world, the harbor is still key to Fells Point's success. And, just as in the old days, residents and visitors relax in waterfront inns and taverns while immigrants (now mostly Hispanic) continue to move to Fells Point in the hope of attaining economic advancement in this old seaport community.

Peskin, Lawrence. "Fells Point: Baltimore's Pre-Industrial Suburb." Maryland Historical Magazine. 97 (2002): 153-73.

Scott-Carl, Kimberly. Baltimore's Original Harbor: A Guide to Historic Fells Point, Canton, Little Italy, and Inner Harbor East. Towson, Md.: Genesis Publishing Company, 2001.