Maryland - Friends of President Street Station

Baltimore, MD - The historic 1849 President Street Station, the oldest big city train station in America, has been restored in 1997 after a 15-year long battle to serve as the Baltimore Civil War Museum. The terminal of the old Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad was later absorbed into the Pennsylvania Railroad. Construction was supervised by Isaac Ridgway Trimble, later a Confederate major general who participated in the famed Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. Longtime head of the line during the 1850s and 60s was President Samuel Morse Felton who notified detective Alan Pinkerton of the existence of an assasination plot against President Abraham Lincoln on his way to his inaguration in Washington in February 1861, causing Lincoln to re-route his trip and pass through Baltimore at night. Several months later the station was also the site of the "First Bloodshed of the Civil War" on Friday, April 19, 1861 as the 6th Massachusetts volunteer militia regiment accompanied by the 26th and 27th Pennsylvania regiments ("The Washington Brigade") were attacked while attempting to pass through to get to the Nation's Capital for its defense after the earlier firing on Fort Sumter and the subsequent call by the President for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the rebellion. The Baltimore Civil War Museum has displays and multi-media presentations regarding the railroad history, unique architecture of the station, as an Underground Railroad escape route and its Civil War heritage with the occupation of Baltimore and the state. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and is operated by the Maryland Historical Society (website: http://www.mdhs.org) and supported by the Friends of President Street Station, Inc. The PSS is also on the list of the Maryland Civil War Trails program. The site is located at 601 South President Street; Baltimore, MD

Site URL: http://www.angelfire.com/biz/presidentststation/
Date resource added: 12-Jan-2004
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