Historic Fells Point Trail: Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park

Be Here Stories

This tour of Fells Point Historic Trail is created by The Baltimore National Heritage Area (BNHA), which promotes, preserves, and enhances Baltimore's historic and cultural legacy and natural resources for current and future generations. A walking tour of this and other destinations is available at www.explorebaltimore.org/tours. Located at 1417 Thames Street Transcript:  This maritime park and museum has something you've likely never seen before. A working reconstruction of the first Black-owned marine railway and shipyard in the United States. Inside the museum, you get a vivid picture of what life was like for African Americans who worked in Baltimore's maritime industry. Frederick Douglass and Isaac Myers, to whom this museum is dedicated, both worked in Fells Point shipyards as caulkers. The more prestigious shipyard jobs, like ship carpenter, were reserved for White men. Later in life, as Douglass and Myers grew into respected, outspoken abolitionists, Myers and several other Black entrepreneurs joined ranks and founded the Marine Railway and Dry Dock Company, which employed both Blacks and Whites.