Stories by author "Richard F. Messick": 33
Stories
Clifton Upholstering & Design
The unassuming space on Harford Road belies the work performed there by its craftspeople. Clifton Upholstering has reupholstered everything from that old couch in the den to 16th century French chairs to period pieces for several locally filmed…
The Afro-American Newspaper
When John H. Murphy, Sr. purchased the Afro-American Newspaper in 1897, the idea of sending a poet to cover a civil war in Spain was probably far from his mind, especially a poet as distinguished as Langston Hughes. His paper, after all, had a…
Site of Woolfolk/Donovan Slave Pen
Austin Woolfolk was one of the first major slave traders in Baltimore, 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…
Site of Jonathan Means Wilson Business
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…
Site of Slatter/Campbell Slave Jail
Hope Hall Slatter, after working in the slave trade in Georgia for a number of years, moved to Baltimore 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…
Site of the Purvis Slave Pen
James Franklin Purvis arrived in Baltimore 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…
Site of Donovan Eutaw St. Slave Jail
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…
Site of Donovan Camden & Light St. Slave Jail
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…
Site of Donovan Light St Slave Jail
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…
Site of Denning Frederick St. Slave Pen
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…
Site of General Intelligence Office
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…
Site of Yates & Harrison Auction House on O'Donnell's Wharf
Baltimore 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…
Site of Three Tuns Tavern
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…
Site of Sinners's Hotel
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…
Site of Whitman's Eagle Hotel
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…
Site of Indian Queen Hotel
Built before 1782, the Indian Queen Hotel was one of the first public houses erected in Baltimore. 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…
Site of the General Wayne Inn
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…
Site of Denning Exeter St. Slave Pen
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.…
Centre Market
Centre Market, aka Marsh Market, was the thriving heart of early Baltimore commerce, primarily due to its proximity to the docks and the cargo arriving regularly. Vendors filled the space along Market Place from Baltimore Street to Pratt Street at…
Site of Campbell Slave Pen
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…
Site of Barnum's Hotel
Barnum’s City Hotel, located where the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. Courthouse stands today, was a common meeting place for all manner of transactions, such as buying, selling, or trading of products. It was common to see advertisements for the sale or…
A.T. Jones & Sons
Imagine a horde of Christmas elves attacking a chorus line of Roman legionaries. Now, if you wish to see this fever-dream in person, take a trip to A.T. Jones & Sons on N. Howard Street. They have a warehouse filled with costumes from any period…
National Lumber Company
Alexander Fruman emigrated to Baltimore from Eastern Europe in 1917 with few possessions. Among them was a handsaw that helped him start a business building wooden windows and doors in 1919, in a shop at the corner of Stiles Street and S. Central…
Lakein’s Jewelers of Hamilton
Like many old family-owned businesses, Lakein’s Jewelers was started by a newly arrived immigrant, 29-year-old Isadore Lakein, who arrived in the United States from Russia in 1912 with his wife Anna and their son Samuel. A second son, David, was…
Faidley's Seafood
Faidley’s is as much about the people as the seafood. Whether gathered around the store’s raw bar at one of the stand-up tables near the busy line of workers making crab cakes, customers are often feel like they’re simply sharing a meal with old…
Budeke’s Paint
Budeke's Paint operated in the same storefront on Broadway from 1870 up until 2018. Unfortunately, in the early morning hours of September 7, 2018 a fire broke out on the first floor and grew into a four-alarm blaze that destroyed the stock, a…
DiPasquale’s Italian Market
In 1914, Luigi DiPasquale, Sr., an Italian immigrant to Baltimore, established a small corner store on Claremont Street stocking groceries and household goods for residents in the developing Highlandtown neighborhood. Over a century later, the…
Hilgartner Natural Stone Company
Founded in 1863 by German immigrants Ludwig Hilgartner and Gottfried Schimpf, Hilgartner Stone has made some of the nation’s finest stonework for over one hundred and fifty years. Of course, the company has made a unique mark on both Baltimore’s…
Meyer Seed Company of Baltimore
Like the countless seeds the Meyer Seed Company has sold over the past hundred years, the story of this long-running legacy business starts with water. Before he held a seed bucket or a watering can, the company’s founder, John F. Meyer, worked as a…
Tochterman’s Fishing Tackle
Tochterman’s ostensibly sells fishing tackle but owners Tony and Dee Tochterman—the third generation of the Tochterman family to run this Eastern Avenue institution—are part of a hundred year long history of customer service that few other…