Federal Hill Main Street is sponsoring a series of walking history tours of the Federal Hill neighborhood, that kicked off with “preview” tours in mid-June and that will run on alternate weekends in July and August.
“As we celebrate the 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence, we can see over 400 years of the fullness of the American experience reflected in this little corner of South Baltimore,” said tour guide Chris Riehl of Rent-a-Tour, a skilled raconteur and Baltimore guide, addressing a preview tour group.
The 90-minute walk covers roughly two miles, starting at Federal Hill Park, where this microcosmic view of history is reflected in the panoramic view of Baltimore that spreads before the Hill. From that vantage point, Riehl’s lively and literate narration covers the Piscataway and Susquehannock tribes’ origins around the Patapsco River basin, highlights John Smith’s famous explorations (Federal Hill was originally known as John Smith’s Hill), and outlines the early development of Fell’s Point and the founding of Baltimore.
The park’s monuments to Samuel Smith and George Armistead and the view east toward Fort McHenry spark illuminating stories of the War of 1812 and the Battle of Baltimore, and of the shipyards, the immigration piers, and the railroad yards of Locust Point. The cannon pointed at the city from Federal Hill sparks a summary of the history of Baltimore’s role in the Civil War (including Fort Federal Hill), which is then vividly brought to life with a short walk to see the house that served as Union General Benjamin Butler’s Civil War headquarters on nearby Hamburg Street
The Civil Rights movement is illuminated when the group stops at the old Southern High School on Warren Street next to the park, a flash point in the fight for school desegregation in the 1950s and 60s. That theme continues as the tour proceeds to Riverside Park, where the young Elijah Cummings was attacked by a white mob while trying to integrate the city pool, spurring him to a life of Civil Rights activism.
As the tour moves through the residential streets toward the business district, the group has an opportunity to contemplate the neighborhood’s rich stock of brick row houses and muse on the rise and fall of Formstone. The history of the business district gets its due as the tour progresses down Light Street and hits Cross Street Market. The spiritual history of the neighborhood is touched on with stops at Holy Cross, St. Mary Star of the Sea, and Salem Evangelical Lutheran. A return up S. Charles Street to Cross Street Market caps off the tour.
Tickets for the upcoming tours are free but require advance registration as space is limited. Tours are scheduled for July 11, 12, 25, and 26, and August 8, 9, and 23. For more information and to register, visit fedhill.org/history-tours. – Robert Hardy
South Baltimore Peninsula Post 