5 Things to know about Baltimore’s role in the fight for independence

Baltimore had only been around for about 45 years and had fewer than 10,000 residents when delegates gathered in Philadelphia to declare independence from Britain in July 1776. So, it’s easy for the city to fall under the radar when discussing the nation’s founding and the American Revolutionary War.

True, four Marylanders signed the Declaration of Independence: Charles Carroll, Samuel Chase, William Paca and Thomas Stone. But it’s not the site of any major battles and remained largely untouched by British soldiers, unlike other port cities.

“Unlike the War of 1812 or the Civil War, I think it’s easier for Baltimoreans and for Marylanders not to have a sense that the contributions of Maryland to the revolution were as important as they were,” said Jefferson Gray, who created a downtown Baltimore walking tour.

From Baltimore briefly serving as the nation’s de facto capital for two months starting in late 1776 to its role in building Continental Navy ships, here are a few things you might not have known about the contributions of Baltimore — and Marylanders — to the fight for independence.

Baltimore, the capital

If you’ve ever seen a concert or sporting event at CFG Bank Arena, you might not have known that it stands on a spot where history was made.

After George Washington’s army narrowly escaped disaster in New York, concerns about a British attack prompted the Second Continental Congress to relocate from Philadelphia to Baltimore to avoid capture.

So, from December 1776 to January 1777, Baltimore became the young nation’s de facto capital.

The Continental Congress met at Henry Fite House, a three-story, attic-brick tavern and inn at the corner of Liberty and Market streets. Later known as Old Congress Hall, it was destroyed in the city’s 1904 fire and is now the location of CFG Bank Arena, where legendary acts such as The Beatles, Beyoncé, James Brown and Bruce Springsteen have performed.

With roughly 6,000 to 7,000 residents, the city was more of a settlement at the time, Gray said. Streets hadn’t even been paved yet, a source of frustration for some of the delegates.

“A number of the members of Congress, including John Adams, a very dedicated daily diarist, recorded their dismay at just how dirty the city was, how deep the mud was in the streets, and overall just how unimpressed they were about Baltimore,” Gray said.

Yet after the streets were paved in 1782 and streetlights installed two years later, Washington called it “the risingest town in America,” according to “A History Lover’s Guide to Baltimore,” a 2021 book by Brennen Jensen and Tom Chalkley.

Muddy streets aside, the Continental Congress was quite proactive in Baltimore, granting Washington sweeping powers to conduct the war.

“We have done more important business in three weeks than we had done, and I believe should have done, at Philadelphia, in six months,” Samuel Adams, then a delegate from Massachusetts, remarked at the time.

It was also here that copies of the Declaration of Independence with the signers’ names on them were printed.

The woman’s name on the Declaration of Independence

A total of 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence, starting in August 1776 in Philadelphia and continuing for months afterward.

But a woman’s name also appears on the document, that of Mary Katharine Goddard.

Goddard was born in New London, Connecticut in 1738 and lived in Baltimore from 1774 until her death in 1816, according to the Maryland State Archives. Historians say Goddard learned the printing business from her brother, William Goddard.

He started the first newspaper in Baltimore, The Maryland Journal and the Baltimore Advertiser, in May 1773, according to historians. Goddard joined her brother in February 1774 to run the paper, voicing her belief in freedom for some — she did publish runaway slave ads — and uplifting the Continental Congress.

By 1775, Goddard became Baltimore’s first postmaster, the first woman to hold such a position in the 13 colonies, according to the National Park Service. It was while the Continental Congress worked from the Henry Fite House that Goddard was tasked with printing the Declaration of Independence.

In addition to including some of the signers’ names, the bottom read, “Baltimore, in Maryland. Printed by Mary Katharine Goddard.”

This was a break from her custom of printing as M.K. Goddard, according to Martina Kado, the vice president of research and the France-Merrick director of the H. Furlong Baldwin Library at the Maryland Center for History and Culture.

“By joining her full name with the signers of the Declaration, she expresses the definitive, undoubted alignment with the Revolutionary cause,” Kado said, a risky move at the time.

The Maryland Center features an exhibit that includes four chairs belonging to the Maryland signers of the Declaration of Independence, including Carroll, the only Catholic to sign the document. Across the hall is one dedicated solely to Goddard.

“We wanted to provide a compliment and a counterpoint to this story because we want to tell as full of a story as possible about Maryland’s participation in the Revolution,” Kado said.

‘Maryland Line’

Though Baltimore is best known for its role in the War of 1812, soldiers from here and other parts of Maryland played a significant role in the fighting during the Revolutionary War. Often referred to as the Maryland Line, troops from the state contributed to seven regiments as part of the Continental Army.

“The quality of the Maryland troops who served in the Continental Army was outstanding,” Gray said. “That was one of Maryland’s really enormous contributions to the success of the Revolutionary War effort.”

In the Battle of Long Island, an overwhelming British victory in August 1776, Maryland soldiers repeatedly attacked a larger British force near the Old Stone House, buying time for Washington to evacuate his troops across the East River to Manhattan. Of the 400 Maryland soldiers, 256 were killed while 100 more were wounded or captured, a sacrifice that would be noted by Washington.

The Maryland State Archives says that more than 100 Black soldiers served in Maryland units during the Revolutionary War.

Maryland troops served critical roles in some of the defining battles in the war, including The Philadelphia Campaign of 1777-78, the defense of the Carolinas, and the Battle of Camden in 1780.

Continental Navy traces back to Fells Point

The Continental Navy was authorized on Oct. 13, 1775, and it would serve as the nation’s first navy for a decade. Its ships played a crucial role in staving off British trade and attacks during the Revolutionary War — and some were fitted for naval warfare in Baltimore’s Fells Point.

While Baltimoreans today may enjoy the string of restaurants and offbeat bars that line Fells Point’s streets, the neighborhood was previously the site of a full-service center that turned out ships for the navy. The USS Fly, USS Hornet, USS Virginia and USS Wasp are just a few of the vessels used during the Revolutionary War that were built in Baltimore.

Baltimore was also home to early naval heroes, including Joshua Barney, who historians say joined the Continental Navy at age 17 and became the youngest captain of a frigate, according to the National Park Service. One of his most significant acts during the Revolutionary War was delivering diplomatic papers to Benjamin Franklin during the Treaty of Paris negotiations.

“On his return home, he carries the message that Franklin had been successful and that peace had been negotiated. We had won the Revolutionary War,” Johns Hopkins, the executive director of Baltimore Heritage, said in a video. “Our own Barney gets to bring home the good news.”

Fort Whetstone, later Fort McHenry

The American Revolutionary War also saw a small earthen fort take shape at the end of a peninsula leading into the Baltimore harbor.

Authorized by Maryland leaders in January 1776, Fort Whetstone was never attacked during the war but allowed for the free passage of merchants and others supplying American forces, according to the National Park Service.

The fort served as the city’s main fortification until 1783. Fifteen years later, it was expanded “with brick and stone masonry to create a new, more permanent, structure,” the park service says.

It would be renamed Fort McHenry after Baltimore native James McHenry, who served as Washington’s secretary of war.

By 1814, the world would know about Fort McHenry after American forces there withstood the British assault on Baltimore over three days in September, inspiring Francis Scott Key to write “The Star Spangled Banner.”

Courtney Knight contributed to this report.