On "Mobtown," War of 1812 origins of...

Baltimore is a city of nicknames--Charm City, The Monumental City, The City of Firsts, The City That Reads, The Greatest City in America -- and whatever is currently written on the bus benches across the city. One that has stuck over the years is "Mob Town," and it turns out we're coming up on the 200th anniversary of earning the name.

I've often seen "Mobtown" traced to the Pratt Street riots in 1861 (see the picture above), or the Know-Nothing rowdies in the 1840s and 50s, but it seems to date back further than that. The earliest reference I found in the Sun archives, which go back to 1837, is an 1838 letter to the editor:

In an 1838 "History of Pennsylvania Hall, Which Was Destroyed By A Mob" (and which is in Philadelphia), I found this line: "... the outrages committed by mobs in Baltimore, which have gained for that city the unenviable appellation of 'Mobtown'...." and in the records of an 1838 Commonwealth Convention in Philadelphia, to amend the state constitution, a Mr. Heister, of Lancaster, makes reference to a civil disorder law in Maryland: "We have recently seen the good effects of this law in Baltimore, not inaptly termed mob town—since the legislature of Maryland passed an act providing that the city should compensate the losers of property, by mobs."

In the 1830s, "Mobtown" didn't entirely belong to Baltimore, though, and the Sun seems to have been eager to discard it, or at least pawn it off on someone else, specifically Philadelphia.

But this wasn't the first time Baltimore had been called Mobtown. In The Western Messenger in 1835 or 36, the author of a "Letter on Mobs" rails against city violence in general, and Baltimore violence specifically. "You have without doubt, heard of the recent proceedings in Baltimore. That city is now re-baptised with its old name of "Mob-town,'' the letter says, "and well does it deserve the name, though, unfortunately, it has ceased to be very designative." The specific incident seems to have been a bank riot:

... in Baltimore the guilt is aggravated. It is true, that a body of men, the directors, etc. of the American Bank, which failed two years ago, are charged by the creditors of that bank, with gross fraud, but this is not proved, and is at the present time under trial, before the proper tribunal....One week would probably have put all at rest, in an equable manner. But this is not what the mob wished for. They saw the men, whom they charge with fraud, living in riches, and they thirsted for vengeance. They have taken it, with the utmost deliberation. They have destroyed their property, and sought to take the lives of the most obnoxious, and it was not until their main object was accomplished, that they could be quelled.

So Baltimore was already called Mobtown before the American Bank incident, but why?

The Niles Weekly Register, from April 29, 1815 (which was published in Baltimore on Calvert Street) contains this:

Further, we learn that from five to ten commercial houses are about to be established in Baltimore, by persons from Boston and its neighborhood. We greet them with a hearty welcome, and hope they may prosper amongst us. Many of our best and most patriotic citizens are emigrants from New England; and even a very "blue light" loses that factious, grumbling and suspicious spirit that distinguished him at home.f afier residing here a little while; for he finds this "Sodom," this "mob town" this "den of devils" as pious people in charity called Us, to have much less bickerings and quarrels than Boston, with a great deal mire harmony among neighbors, sind a general disposi'ion to ohligi; and he discovers what not a little surprises him, that our bank directors never enquire, whether he is a, "republican" or a "federalist!"

And in 1814, the Register (which seems to have had a bit of a beef with Boston), used the nickname similarly in another article -- always with quotes, to take issue with the idea that Baltimore was somehow inferior to Boston and other New England centers of commerce: "During these years the simple city of Baltimore (to be sure the only exporting place in Maryland) exported the value of 60,321,000 dollars, leaving a balance of about one million in favor of ell the "great commercial states'" against the city of Baltimore—the 'mob-town' and 'hater of commerce.'"


In 1835, a letter on the subject of general disrespect for the law refers to the American Bank riots again, but might give a clue about what happened in Baltimore to brand it for all time.

More recently, since the scenes of murder, outrage, and destruction which have been exhibited through the United States, both in the slave-holding States, and in those in which slavery does not exist, in the country as well as in the towns, at Boston, the republican city par excellence, as as well as at Baltimore, for which the bloody excesses of which it was the theatre in 1812, have gained the title of the Mob Town, good citizens have repeated with grief; "We are in the midst of a revolution."

So what happened in 1812?


Scharf's History of Baltimore has the answers, so I'll summarize.


When congress declared war on Britain (the War of 1812), a lot of people were upset about it. The Federal Republican and Commercial Gazette, published in Baltimore, had been strongly against the war, an opinion that ran contrary to the feelings of most of the German, French and Irish immigrants in the city. On June 22, 1812, some 35 men and boys attached the newspaper's headquarters, dismantling it brick by brick. No one was injured, but it kicked off a week of attacks by anti-war Baltimoreans against anyone who might be in favor of the war-- Protestant Irish, Portuguese, Spanish, and (for some reason) free blacks. The mob also destroyed ships in the harbor believed to be associated with the British.
Alexander Contee Hanson, the newspaper publisher, decamped to Washington, DC for a few days, then returned to Baltimore, to a house on Charles Street, with a band of armed supporters. On June 26, a mob attacked the Charles Street house, and one member of the mob was killed. Hanson and his men surrendered three days later, and the mob tore down the house. That evening, they attacked the jail. Some of the prisoners escaped, but others, including Hanson and James McCubbin Lingan, a hero of the Revolutionary War, were captured, stripped and beaten for hours. Lingan was beaten to death, and expired with the last words "Farewell, I am a dying man; Make your escape!" Another man, who did escape the jail, was captured, dragged to Old Town, and tarred and feathered.
Federalist newspapers around the country ran editorials decrying the violence in Baltimore, and Federalist candidates swept Maryland in subsequent elections, including Hanson, the newspaper publisher, who became a U.S. Senator in 1816.
Scharf ends his summary of the 1812 riot with these words: "Baltimore for many a year felt the consequences of the shameful deed, which fixed upon her an enduring reproach, and the opprobrious name of 'Mobtown.'"


So there it is. Scharf details earlier riots, but it was this one, 200 years ago next month, that put us on the national map as a place to be feared. The Battle of Fort McHenry happened in 1814, so if you really want to celebrate the anniversary of Baltimore's contribution to the War of 1812, tear down a building this June.