A Halifax Merchant Writes to Baltimore
The envelope was addressed to:
Messrs. James Corner & Sons
Baltimore
Across the top is the routing instruction “pr Str ‘Commerce,’ via Boston.” A 10¢ Nova Scotia Queen Victoria stamp pays the postage. The Halifax postmark reads SE 21 1864, and a manuscript notation on the reverse reads “Sept 21/27 1864,” presumably recording the date of mailing and receipt.
The cover is a window into the maritime business networks connecting Halifax, Boston and Baltimore in the 1860s—and into the very different political and social world in which those commercial networks continued to operate during the Civil War.
Daniel H. Pitts of Halifax
The handwriting at the upper left of the cover appears to identify the sender as D. H. Pitts. The identification can be made with considerable confidence as Daniel Harris Pitts (1841–1891), a Halifax merchant.
The 1871 Canadian census places Daniel H. Pitts, age 30, in the household of his parents, William Harris Pitts and Elizabeth Cronan, and identifies him as a merchant. His mother, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Daniel Cronan Sr. and the sister of the prominent Halifax merchant Daniel Cronan (1807–1892).
This places the young Pitts within a Halifax family already deeply involved in maritime commerce. By the time of the 1864 letter, however, Daniel was only about 23 years old. His subsequent career shows that he was already beginning to establish himself in the waterfront business community.
Merchant, Ship Chandler and Shipowner
The Halifax directories provide a useful progression. In 1866–67, Daniel H. Pitts is listed at 109 Upper Water. By 1870 and 1871 he was at 103 Upper Water, and the 1870 directory identifies him as a ship chandler. The 1872–73 street directory likewise identifies him as a ship chandler.
By 1873, he was described as a commission merchant, and in 1874 he was again listed as a ship chandler, at 101 Upper Water. His occupations later included broker and corn merchant.
The changing descriptions of Pitts's occupation deserve some attention. After the mid-1870s, ship chandler becomes an increasingly prominent description. It would be tempting to interpret this as evidence that he had left general mercantile business and become a specialist. That may not be what happened.
A ship chandler supplied vessels with the materials and provisions necessary for their operation—including rope and cordage, canvas, blocks and tackle, chains, anchors, marine supplies, tools, provisions and other shipboard necessities. For a man who also owned interests in merchant vessels, ship chandlery was a natural extension of a maritime business.
Pitts's earlier descriptions—merchant, ship chandler, commission merchant and broker—likely represent different aspects of an interconnected waterfront business.
His vessel ownership supports this interpretation. Records identify Pitts as an owner of the schooner Triumph, built in 1851, in which he held 16 of 64 shares, and of the barque Liscomb, built in 1854, in which he held 32 of 64 shares. Later records show continued ownership interests in vessels including Lizzle, Devon, Ann Amelia, Teignmouth and Maggie. By 1891 he was identified as a corn merchant.
Rather than seeing these occupations as a sequence in which one business replaced another, it may be more accurate to see Pitts as a maritime merchant whose activities included ship ownership, ship chandlery, commission business, brokerage and commodity trading.
A Family of Merchants and Shipowners
The Cronan connection adds another dimension to the story.
Daniel Pitts's mother, Elizabeth Cronan (1811–1882), was a sister of Daniel Cronan. The 1871 census records Daniel Cronan, age 62, in Halifax and identifies him as a merchant.
The Cronan family was involved in shipping as well as general commerce. The 1875 Mercantile Navy List, for example, records Daniel Cronan of Halifax as the registered owner of the schooner Eliza Jane, built at Cornwallis in 1835.
Who Were James Corner & Sons?
The recipient is just as interesting as the sender.
At first glance, “James Corner & Sons” sounds as though the letter was addressed to James Corner himself. But James Coleman Corner had died in 1843, twenty-one years before this letter was mailed. The firm continued under his name.
James Corner (1783–1843) was a Baltimore merchant who had established himself in the city's waterfront commercial community. His sons Thomas Corner (1815–1890), Baptist Mezick Corner (1818–1888), and George Washington Corner (1821–1905) became the principals of the family firm.
According to the family history, the three brothers established James Corner & Sons around 1840. By the time of the Pitts cover, therefore, the firm was a second-generation family business operating under the name of its deceased founder.
A contemporary Woods' Baltimore City Directory for 1865–66 provides an unusually precise description:
Corner's Wharf
The firm's location is important. Corner's Wharf, at the foot of Frederick Dock, placed the business directly within Baltimore's waterfront commercial district.
The firm's counting room also appears in contemporary newspaper reports. On April 21, 1864, The Baltimore Sun announced that the annual meeting of the Seamen's Union Bethel Society of Baltimore would be held that afternoon at the counting room of Messrs. James Corner & Sons.
This gives us a glimpse of the firm's place within Baltimore's maritime community. Its counting room was not simply an office for clerks and bookkeeping; it was part of the social and commercial world surrounding the city's seamen and shipping interests.
The firm's connection with Halifax can be seen directly in the Baltimore newspapers. The Baltimore Sun of March 23, 1864, reporting clearances from the Port of Baltimore on March 22, listed the British schooner Lucy Ann, commanded by Boudrot, bound for Halifax, with James Corner & Sons named in connection with the voyage.
For James Corner & Sons, however, the waterfront remained the practical center of their world. Their business at Corner's Wharf continued to connect Baltimore with vessels, cargoes, merchants and ports far beyond Maryland. The Pitts cover therefore arrived at a moment when Baltimore's political and social world was changing rapidly, even as the city's Atlantic commercial networks remained active.
The political transformation of Maryland was also unfolding while this correspondence was in transit. The state's new constitution was approved in October 1864 and took effect on November 1, abolishing slavery in Maryland. Baltimore marked the change with a public celebration that included the firing of hundreds of guns, the ringing of bells and the display of flags. Thus the September arrival of Pitts's letter falls between two very different moments: the city's wartime uncertainty and the constitutional transformation that would reshape Maryland's society.
Yet the city's commercial life continued. The contemporary history of Baltimore describes military authorities maintaining a close watch over the city during this period, while merchants, manufacturers and other businesses continued to operate. This is an important backdrop for the Pitts cover: the letter was not entering a city whose commercial life had simply stopped because of the war. It was entering an active port in a city where shipping and mercantile business continued alongside military and political upheaval.
The year's events had brought the war unusually close to Maryland. In April, President Abraham Lincoln addressed the Baltimore Sanitary Fair, organized by Maryland women to raise funds for the U.S. Sanitary Commission. In June, Baltimore hosted the National Union Party convention. The following month Confederate forces under Lt. Gen. Jubal Early entered Maryland, occupying Hagerstown and Frederick and demanding ransoms. The Battle of Monocacy, fought on July 9, checked Early's advance long enough for Union reinforcements to reach Washington.
The setting at the Baltimore end of the correspondence is worth pausing over. When Pitts wrote his letter in September 1864, Baltimore was simultaneously a major commercial port, an important Union city, and a community living under the extraordinary conditions of the Civil War.
Baltimore in the Autumn of 1864
The Corner Brothers
Baptist Mezick Corner (1818–1888) was a principal of the firm and was living at 50 Franklin Street in 1864. He was a merchant and was directly involved in the family's international business.
George W. Corner (1821–1905) was living at 20 North Broadway in 1864 and working for James Corner & Sons. His later career is particularly interesting. By 1870 he was described as a corn merchant, and in 1880 as a commission merchant, with two of his sons working in the business.
Thomas Corner (1815–1890) was also a principal of the firm. He provides especially good evidence of the family's direct involvement in shipping. In 1854 he sold his share of the barque Huntington to his brother Ted Corner, who already owned a share and was master of the vessel.
The Corner family were therefore not simply shore-based commission merchants. They had direct interests in merchant vessels and in the movement of cargoes.
A Baltimore Firm with an International Reach
The surviving Corner family correspondence gives us an unusually good view of the firm's overseas business.
More than 119 business and personal letters to Ted Corner survive from 1859 to 1871. Approximately one-third are business letters from the firm to Ted while he was in places including Valparaiso, Panama and Lima.
The correspondence included cargo lists and instructions about what to buy and sell. This suggests a family business whose activities extended far beyond Baltimore harbor. Family members participated directly in the firm's overseas commercial network.
The Marshal Peelisser
On December 31, 1864, The Baltimore Sun carried a notice concerning the British ship Marshal Peelisser, arriving from Valparaiso.
The notice warned persons against extending credit to members of the vessel's crew and was signed JAMES CORNER & SONS. The firm was acting as the ship's consignees.
Valparaiso was an important Pacific trading port, and its appearance in both the Corner family's surviving correspondence and this contemporary newspaper notice demonstrates that the firm's international activities were active during the very year in which Daniel Pitts sent his letter.
The Steamer Commerce
The routing instruction on the Pitts cover provides another important piece of the story.
The letter was specifically endorsed “pr Str ‘Commerce,’ via Boston.” The Commerce was a 278-ton Halifax-registered steamer, commanded in 1864 by F. M. Snow.
Her history is particularly interesting. The vessel had previously been the blockade runner Pet, which was captured by the United States Navy in February 1864. After being sent to Boston as a prize, she was purchased by Franklin Snow, renamed Commerce, and entered commercial service.
Thus, when Pitts wrote his letter in September 1864, the Commerce was a new participant in the regular steamship service between Halifax and Boston.
The new service also connected Charlottetown, Halifax and Boston, and the Commerce was operating with the larger steamer Franconia. Contemporary advertisements show the vessels operating on a regular schedule, and surviving passenger records document Commerce sailings between Boston, Halifax and Charlottetown.
One October 1864 passenger manifest, for example, records the Commerce sailing from Halifax and Charlottetown to Boston, under Captain F. M. Snow.
The cover therefore was not being sent by an improvised or unusual route. Pitts was using a regular commercial steamship connection between Halifax and Boston, from where the letter could enter the American postal system for Baltimore.
A Young Merchant in a Maritime World
For now, the cover tells us something important even without knowing the exact contents of the letter.
On September 21, 1864, a young Halifax merchant named Daniel H. Pitts placed a letter into the Nova Scotia mails. He directed it to James Corner & Sons, an established Baltimore shipping and commission house operating from its own waterfront wharf.
The letter was endorsed for the steamer Commerce, one of the new steamers connecting Halifax and Boston, and from Boston continued toward Baltimore.
At the other end, the Corner brothers were operating a family business with interests in ships, cargoes and overseas commerce. Their counting room was part of Baltimore's maritime community at a time when the city was experiencing military pressure, political change and the approaching end of slavery in Maryland.
The cover therefore preserves more than a postal journey. It records a small piece of the commercial network that connected Halifax and Baltimore in the age of sail and steam.
And somewhere inside that network was the reason a young Halifax merchant needed to write to Messrs. James Corner & Sons in September 1864.
Sources and Further Research
· History of Baltimore City and County, pp. 146–150, for the Civil War and 1864 Baltimore context.
· The Baltimore Sun, March 23, 1864 (Port of Baltimore clearance for the schooner Lucy Ann, Halifax).
· Woods' Baltimore City Directory, 1865–1866.
· Halifax city and street directories, 1866–1874.
· 1871 Census of Canada.
· 1875 Mercantile Navy List.
· The Baltimore Sun, April 21, 1864 and December 31, 1864.
· Corner family biographical and genealogical records, including surviving correspondence to Ted Corner, 1859–1871.
· Library and Archives Canada vessel registration records for Commerce.
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