Baltimore Inventors/Inventions: The Famous and Not So Famous

Ottmar Mergenthaler
(1854-1899)

   Baltimore has had its share of creative and ingenious minds even prior to 1790 when the United States officially began recognizing patents as legally proscribed by the signing of the Constitution in 1785 and, as such, there have been some famous and not-so famous inventors that Baltimore is proud to call its own.

Mergenthaler Linotype - 1886
(Courtesy: U.S. Patent Office)

   One of the earliest documented Baltimore inventions is the Baltimore "Mud Machine", a horse-powered dredger that scooped mud from channels in the Port of Baltimore.  Invented in 1783 by two of three Quaker Ellicott brothers, Andrew and John Ellicott who owned the largest gristmill and flour export business on the east coast of the United States, as a solution for clearing and deepening the departure channels for the many boats from their warehouse and wharf at Pratt and Light Street.

   In 1886, Ottmar Mergenthaler (1854-1899) of Baltimore, designed a "Machine for Producing Type Bars" for Printing Purposes, which went on to be known as the first Linotype Machine.  His company went on to become the Mergenthaler Linotype of New Jersey and New York where numerous improvements were made to this important invention of the U.S. printing industry.

Bates Hoist Machine (1871)
(Courtesy: U.S. Library of Congress)

   From his Iron Foundry and Machine Shop at 1512 Fleet Street, James Bates (1816-1896) invented his "Hoist Machine" (currently in the Baltimore Museum of Industry) which was patented in April 1871. Although Elisha Otis was said to have invented the first passenger elevator ten years prior, this Baltimore inventor's idea for a hand ratchet hoist made it unnecessary to wind a rope upon any drum or cylinder.

Elijah Bond's
"Toy or Game" - 1891
(Courtesy: U.S. Patent Office)

   By the end of what is known as the Victorian Era, between 1891 and 1892, when spiritualism was nearly fifty years mature and popular within the U.S., a total of three Baltimore inventors filed patents for their "talking boards."  It turns out that the Ouija Board, invented by Isaac and William Fuld of Baltimore, was not (as some Baltimore-based blogs have postulated) the first of the lot.  Elijah J. Bond of Baltimore invented his "Toy or Game," filed for patent in May 1890 and receiving U.S. Patent No. 446,054, for a psychograph/game rendition having a suspicious likeness to the model later made famous by the Fulds.  The other Baltimore inventor by the name of Moritz Schirman patented his "Talking Board" (Patent No. 520,616) from a 1892 filing.

Joseph Shapiro
Cake Cone Design - 1920
(Courtesy: U.S. Patent Office)

   In January 1894, while the world was still opening chewing gum having the form of flat sticks, George M. Harsh of Baltimore, filed and shortly afterwards patented his "Design For a Tablet of Chewing-Gum," (Patent No. 23,096).  The design consisted of a circular disk or tablet having a diametrical ridge or bead extending across one side and dividing the surface into two equal parts; the surface of the reverse side being plain.  The "Chiclets" tablet came into production 11 years later, possibly as a candied perfection to this Baltimore invention.

   According to the New York Times, at the turn of the 20th Century, when eating was still a formal affair, ice cream was served as a delicate sliver on a plate and savored with a teaspoon.  During the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, that changed when it is said the first waffle was rolled into a cone allowing the ice cream eater to walk-about.  While there are many such stories on the first to invent an ice cream cone, a Baltimore inventor by the name of Joseph Shapiro invented a design for a cake cone, filed for patent in April 1920, which was likely the first ornamental design of its kind.

   In the 21st Century, the origin of one of the more modern inventions was that of Robert D. Morrow of Baltimore who, as a 38-year-old electronics engineer working at the Martin Company, designed and invented his "Video Tape Recorder Using Amplitude Modulated Carrier and Saturated Tape."  He, along with Andrew S. Hegeinan, received a patent (No. 3405232) in May 1965 and (according to a June 5, 1965 Baltimore Sun article) it was available at market by the Christmas of 1966 as a home TV recorder at the price of $400.

Faded Hints of the Past Series: Border State Savings Bank

North-facing, Backside of
4 Park Avenue,
Photographed: 11 Sept 2013

   I realized that evidence from Baltimore's history is slipping away in front of our very eyes - we go about our business and daily lives not realizing that those remaining ties to the past are unraveling by the day.   A new investigative series of the Charm City History blog will be known as "Faded Hints of the Past" which will capture the slightest remnants of markers, fading painted (or ghost) ads , cornerstones, doorplates, or any other descriptor that provide small clues that offer a small window into a piece of Baltimore's past.

(Photo credit: Google street view)

   We begin with a building situated at 100 Park Avenue, the downtown Baltimore corner of W. Fayette Street.  While standing on Marion Street and next to the old SS Kresge building, one can look south upon the back side of its plain, exterior brick wall.  Almost obscured by the elements from numerous years, one can barely make out the white background, dark letter painted painted ghost ad on the north-facing, backside, of this late 19th-century four-story brick building - it reads "BORDER STATE SAVINGS BANK".

   Currently, occupied by the Barenburg Eye Associates, we set out to determine whether this ghost ad clue had anything to do with the beautifully architected corner building with a victorian-styled roof, adorned with a single conical dome, upon which it is painted.

Border State Savings Bank ad, 1892,
announcing an impending relocation.

  As it turns out, a single legal notice appeared in the "Special Notices" section of the Baltimore Sun on July 17, 1875 announces to its readers:  "Save Your Money in the Border State Savings Institute of Baltimore City.  This institution, incorporated during the year 1874 for the purpose of a SAVINGS BANK for the receipt of deposits of money and allowing interest on the same, has opened an office at No. 646 West Baltimore Street."  [The location is currently occupied by the buildings of the University of Maryland School of Dentistry]

  Shortly after its incorporation, it moved to a three-story brick building at the southeast corner of S. Poppleton and W. Baltimore Streets which was demolished and replaced by a building that is part of the University of Maryland, BioPark campus.  By 1892, according to an ad in the Directory of Charitable and Beneficient Organizations, the Border State Savings Bank was preparing for a move further west in Baltimore.

1907 Advertisment
(Courtesy: MD State Archives)

Henry F. Brauns
(Photo Courtesy:
BaltimoreArchitecture.org)

  The American Architect and Building News (Apr-Jun 1892) announced that an architect had been chosen for the location of the Border State Savings Bank's first owned-building.  Henry F. Brauns (1845-1917) who, according to a biography on the BaltimoreArchitecture.org website, was a Baltimore-based architect responsible for numerous building in the city. His   Prior to this building, he architected the William Knabe & Company piano factory building (1869) which was once at the present SW corner of M&T Stadium, and the G.W. Gail & Ax Co. tabacco warehouse (1871) at the NE corner of Barre and Charles Sts. Following his work with Border State, he went on to architect the Mount Royal Pumping Station (1897) at North Ave and McMechen (destroyed for I-83 construction) and the Northern District Police Station (1899) building currently at 3355 Keswick Road which are all characteristically similar in Victorian/French Renaissance design.  Nearing the end of his life, he was also responsible for the Browns Arcade building at 322-328 N. Charles Street (1904).

   Since its opening in 1874, the Border State Savings Bank advertised the "acceptance of $1.00 and upwards received on deposit." Small deposits rack up and as reported in the Annual Reports of the Comptroller of the Treasury, MD Comptrollers Office, the Border State Savings Bank held an average end of year deposit amount anywhere from $222,000 ten years after its establishment to near $900,000 by the time it ceased to exist around 1912.