A Wooden House

.....Across Montgomery (to the north) at 130 is one of the few wooden houses left standing today in Baltimore.  This two-story frame house was built in about 1796 by a boat man named Mathew John Murray.  It is a great example of the style of house that was typical of Baltimore Town and Fells Point until 1799.

After 1804, new City Ordinances were enacted to forbid this type of construction due to the fire hazard that resulted from using wood as a primary construction material for home building.  Given the high concentration of houses in the area, this change in the law probably made a lot of sense.  However, as we have already learned, the new ordinances did little to mitigate the damages caused by the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904.