William Eddis arrived in Annapolis in September 1769, three months after his patron, Governor Robert Eden. The Englishman quickly adjusted to his new environment and got up to speed on colonial Maryland’s culture and politics. He was appointed Surveyor and Searcher of Customs in Annapolis and named to other posts through the next few years, including Commissioner of the Paper Currency Office, which was situated in the State Circle building we now call the Old Treasury. Some of William Eddis’s letters to English friends were published in 1792, and through them we see what Annapolis and Maryland were like 250 years ago.
Writing in January 1771, William Eddis recalled his earlier description of the “truly picturesque and beautiful situation of our little capital.” He added now that “[s]everal of the most opulent families have here established their residence; and hospitality is the characteristic of the inhabitants.” The elegant Annapolis homes recently completed or still under construction at the time included the Peggy Stewart, Upton Scott, William Paca, John Ridout, James Brice, and Chase-Lloyd houses.
Eddis continued: “Party prejudices have little influence on social intercourse: the grave and ancient enjoy the blessings of a respectable society, while the young and gay have various amusements to engage their hours of relaxation, and to promote that mutual connexion so essential to their future happiness.” A few local gentlemen had just founded a group they named the Homony Club on December 22, 1770, and William Eddis would soon be proposed and accepted as a member. Eating, drinking, smoking, and joking at the Maryland Coffee-House on Church (now Main) Street became a favorite way for him to escape the chill of wintry Saturday evenings.
There was much for Eddis to admire about Annapolis as an “agreeable residence,” but he thought the city’s “inconveniences” stood in the way of its “progress to commercial importance.” The harbor wasn’t large and deep enough to accommodate “vessels of considerable burden,” and the neighboring waters were “too much exposed, to lade or unlade with safety or convenience.”
Fortunately, Eddis wrote, there was another town nearby which boasted a better harbor and maritime approaches than Annapolis. Named in honor of the colony’s proprietary family, Baltimore had sprung up “in the memory of many persons now in being,” and it looked to be well on its way to matching “the most populous and opulent establishments on this side the Atlantic.” Located only 30 miles away from Maryland’s political capital, Baltimore was poised to become the colony’s commercial center.
William Eddis followed his description of Baltimore with one of Frederick, “the capital of a most extensive, fertile, and populous county.” Excepting these three—Annapolis, Baltimore, and Frederick—he asserted that “there are not any towns of consequence in the province of Maryland.”
You can read or download a digitized version of the original 1792 edition of William Eddis’s Letters from America here: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Letters_from_America_Historical_and_Desc/gPBeAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
Glenn E. Campbell
HA Senior Historian
