Saturday, August 16 — When we’d looked at tourist attractions in Baltimore, the one we wanted to see the most was the Phoenix Shot Tower. Per what we read online, instead of using molds, molten lead was dropped from a platform at the top of the tower, through a sieve-like device, into a vat of cold water at the bottom of the tower to produce “drop shot” for muskets. It sounded like the “tours” were just poking one’s head inside to see how the mechanism worked. The sites we looked at all said it was only open on Saturdays and Sundays, but some said from 1000 – 1200 and others said 1200 – 1600. We decided that the best bet was to go at 1130. It was not open.

Our friends on Parabola that we’d met in the Bahamas, David and Hazel, were from Baltimore. They met us at the Shot Tower. The Shot Tower was surrounded by a park. In the park was another historical home, built in the 1790. It was now occupied by the Women’s Civic League and not open to the public.

continued… The museum was in a single room. It focused primarily on the history of the slave trade and the USS Constellation’s role in trying to stop the illicit trade after slavery was outlawed. There was also an assortment of artifacts from various years that the USS Constellation was in service and a video playing on a loop. Since it was air conditioned, we were happy to linger in the museum and enjoy the cool air.

In our own personal travels this summer, we’d learned about the inception and progression of slavery in Jamestown. When we visited Fort Monroe, we learned a little bit about the abolition of slavery in 1865. In Yorktown, we’d learned that during the Revolutionary War, more and more colonists opposed slavery and by 1784, five states had already banned slavery. When the fledgling new American government was drafting the constitution in 1787, they set a 20-year moratorium on federally banning slavery, hoping that in 20-years they’d come up with viable political and economic alternatives for the states that relied on slavery.