According to recent articles in the Capital Gazette newspaper, the City of Annapolis and a group of companies called Annapolis Mobility and Resilience Partners (AMRP) will soon start work on a multi-phased, multi-year project to rebuild the Hillman Garage and redevelop City Dock with climate resilience infrastructure and more green space. The $63 million public-private partnership is a big deal for the future of our historic city, and it got me thinking about how Annapolitans funded community improvements 250 years ago.
The 18th-century problem at City Dock was twofold. First, natural silting and human dumping of all sorts of filth made it impossible for some vessels to enter the inlet without getting mired in the muck. Second, good solid wharves extending into deeper water were necessary for loading or unloading cargo, but stone wharves were expensive and wooden wharves were soon riddled by naval shipworms. Periodic dredging helped with the first issue, and building new wharves helped with the second, but all that cost money.
Photo Caption: This model of City Dock shows what the Annapolis waterfront looked like around 1800. The model is on display at the Waterfront Warehouse at 4 Pinkney Street. Photo by Historic Annapolis volunteer Ken Tom.
As Jane McWilliams points out in her wonderful book Annapolis, City on the Severn: A History, local government occasionally authorized lotteries to raise money for cleaning and improving City Dock in colonial times. There was one in 1753, then another just five years later, so the earlier effort must not have accomplished much of lasting value. In 1766, rising patriot leader Samuel Chase gave public voice to common complaints about the sorry state of City Dock and asked probing questions about how lottery funds had been used, earning himself the ire of Mayor Walter Dulany and several aldermen and adding to his own growing reputation as a champion of the people.
By 1772, it was time for a new round of improvements at the city’s working waterfront. The March 26 Maryland Gazette published a “SCHEME of a LOTTERY For raising 1500 DOLLARS, For cleaning and securing the DOCK in ANNAPOLIS.” $1,500 was worth a fair bit in 1772, but still considerably less than today’s multimillions!
The plan was to raise $10,000 by selling 5,000 tickets at $2 each. 848 lucky ticket holders would win amounts ranging from $4 to the grand prize of $2,000. The fine print revealed that 15% would be deducted from each prize—that $1,500 had to come from somewhere, after all—so the $2,000 jackpot would yield a $1,700 payout and the 750 winners of $4 prizes would each pocket $3.40. Although there would be more than four losing tickets to every lucky draw, the lottery managers had no doubt that “Tickets will very soon be disposed of, especially as a great Number of them are already engaged.” The drawing would be held in July, or sooner if all the tickets were sold out in advance.
Speaking of the lottery managers, it’s interesting to note some of the names included among the list of organizers. Samuel Chase, who had loudly criticized earlier efforts to deal with City Dock’s problems, was one of the men in charge of this new lottery scheme, along with his close friend and political colleague William Paca. They must have thought they could do a better job than those whom Chase had disparaged in 1766, and this would be their chance to prove it.
Paca’s neighbor James Brice, future state governor Thomas Johnson, and others with definite patriot leanings were among the managers, but so was James Williams, partner in a mercantile firm (Thomas Williams and Co.) accused of flouting the nonimportation pact back in 1770. Other managers—Jacques, Reynolds, Couden, Wallace, Davidson, Harwood, Hodgkin, Rooke, Campbell, etc.—were local businessmen whose financial wellbeing depended to some degree on the continued flow of trade through a functioning City Dock. Lottery tickets could be purchased from any of the managers.
The lottery to benefit City Dock wasn’t the only one advertised in the March 26, 1772 Maryland Gazette. Readers were also informed of the “PETTIE’S ISLAND CASH LOTTERY, To be drawn on the said Island in DELAWARE.” 3,500 tickets would be sold at $3 each. Prizes totaling $8,326 would be awarded, reserving what was left of the $10,500 raised for the lottery’s beneficiary.
What I find most interesting about the Pettie’s Island lottery is that it wasn’t devised to fund a community infrastructure project, such as improvements to the Annapolis waterfront. Rather, it would help advance one man’s efforts to produce quality steel in Pennsylvania. Proceeds would repay Whitehead Humphrey for his “Application, Study, Labour, and Loss of Time” in developing a method of converting iron into steel and allow him to expand his operation “to the best Advantage, either for himself, or the Publick.”
The lottery advertisement appealed to the “noble and patriotic Spirit amongst all real Friends to the Liberty and Happiness of their Country.” Encouraging an American manufacturer would “enable us to provide our own Necessaries, and thereby preserve our Money among ourselves, (the only Way to maintain our Freedom and Independence) instead of remitting it to England, in Pay for the Supplies by them furnished, which they can Tax at Pleasure without our Consent.” There was no doubt where the lottery promoters stood on the issue of English taxation of the American colonies, and they hoped that others would be stirred by their patriotic pitch.
Patriotic Americans who wished “to become Adventurers in this Lottery” could “oppose arbitrary Power in a peaceable Manner” by buying a ticket. The drawing was scheduled for June 1, and tickets could be purchased from the four managers named in the ad. Thomas Williams and Co. (remember them from a few paragraphs back?) would have tickets for sale in Annapolis, so for a mere $5, you could procure tickets to both the Pettie’s Island and City Dock lotteries from James Williams. Even if you didn’t win, you’d still have the satisfaction of knowing that your money was going to further two worthwhile causes.
You can read the March 26, 1772 issue of the Maryland Gazette beginning here: https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc4800/sc4872/001282/html/m1282-0070.html
Glenn E. Campbell
HA Senior Historian
Comentários