Baltimore Bank Riot - Riot

Riot

On August 6, 1835 a small crowd approached bank director and U.S. Senator Reverdy Johnson's (1796-1876) home on Battle Monument Square on the northwest corner of North Calvert and East Fayette Streets in Baltimore, broke his windows and left. Anticipating further violence, Mayor Jesse Hunt and other citizens began to guard Johnson's home. A hostile crowd returned on Friday evening, August 7th and broke more windows, despite the mayor's presence. Mayor Hunt addressed the mob and managed to persuade them to disperse.

Anticipating further violence, Mayor Hunt summoned thirty armed horsemen who formed a cordon across the entrance to Battle Monument square. The next evening, a large crowd gathered in Baltimore Street and marched north on Calvert toward the mayor and his guard. Unable to break through, the crowd moved to the home of Judge John Glenn, another bank director, where they smashed windows, broke through a barricaded front door, threw furniture into the street, and tore down the entire front wall. Police arrived and fired into the mob, but the rioters refused to disperse.

On Sunday, August 9, the mob returned to the Johnson home, this time overpowering the guard there and causing further destruction, making a bonfire in the street out of Johnson's valuable law library. Having taken full control of the town, the mob continued its destruction against the homes of bank director John B. Morris, Mayor Hunt, Evan T. Ellicott, a Captain Bentzinger, and one "Captain Willy", whose guilt was merely that he had protested the mob's activities.

In an effort to resolve the situation, a mass meeting was held at the massive domed "Merchants' Exchange" building, which housed various Federal offices, courts, post office and maritime businesses, on South Gay between Water and Lombard Streets. Mayor Hunt, having lost the confidence of the citizens of Baltimore, resigned. In his place the 83-year old General Sam Smith (1752-1839), former senator and mayor, hero of the Revolution and of Baltimore's defenses during the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812, took over the government of the city.

Smith organized volunteers to march with him to Howard's Park at the estate of "Belvedere" of recently deceased Col. John Eager Howard (1752-1827), commander of the famed "Maryland Line" regiment of the Continental Army, north of the town where the Washington Monument had recently been completed. A great crowd responded and received instructions to arm themselves and assemble at City Hall, then located on Holliday Street between East Saratoga and Lexington Streets in the former Peale Museum. At 3,000 in number, Smith's army of volunteers humbled the mob. A call for help had already gone out to Annapolis and Washington for federal troops, though by the time they arrived, the Baltimore mob had dispersed and the city was quiet.