Maryland
launched no whaling voyages,
but Baltimore launched many
whaleships. In fact, retired
B&O railroading executive
L. Byrne Waterman of Baltimore
(an Overseer of the KWM and
a long-time volunteer at the
Maryland Historical Society)
has devoted a substantial
part of his retirement to
searching and documenting
Maryland-built whalers.
One of the caulkers employed
in Baltimore's flourishing
shipyards in the 1830s was
a young slave named Frederick
Douglass. With the help
of a free black woman whom
he later married, in 1838
Douglass slipped his bonds
and, disguised as a sailor,
passed through Philadelphia
and New York to New Bedford.
It was in the whaling community
there and at nearby Nantucket
that this greatest of 19th-century
African-American abolitionists,
launched his brilliant career
as an orator, journalist,
organizer, and statesman.
Maryland
launched no whaling voyages,
but Baltimore launched many
whaleships. In fact, retired
B&O railroading executive
L. Byrne Waterman of Baltimore
(an Overseer of the KWM and
a long-time volunteer at the
Maryland Historical Society)
has devoted a substantial
part of his retirement to
searching and documenting
Maryland-built whalers.
