Travel to Baltimore was uneventful, as expected. Thanks to Southwest, Baltimore is about the easiest place to get to from Louisville. My initial destination was the Admiral Fell Inn, a historic hotel (the building dates from circa 1900, although the hotel itself first opened in 1985) in the Fells Point neighborhood of Baltimore. Fells Point is famous most recently for being the location used in the NBC series Homicide. Anyway, Fells Point is named for brothers William and Edward Fell, who arrived from England in 1726 and 1730:
Edward Fell sailed from England to the colonies in 1726. He was a real-estate man and owned property on both sides of the Jones Falls. He named his town Jones Town, after David Jones, the first man to settle here. As Baltimore grew and began to swallow neighboring villages, Jones Town became known as simply Old Town.Edward’s brother William had remained in England, but after hearing of his brother’s wealth, he crossed the Atlantic in 1730. When William arrived, he bought a 100-acre parcel of land and built a mansion and shipyard. William had five children, including an only son, Edward. Young Edward got more from his uncle than a name; when the elder Edward Fell died in 1738, he left his nephew his land. In 1745, when Baltimore Town and Jones Town officially joined to form Baltimore, William Fell served on the board of commissioners that watched over the jurisdiction. William died a year later, and he too left his estate to the young Edward Fell, uniting the estates of the English brothers. In 1763, Edward Fell named this enormous holding Fells Point and gave the streets English names, such as Shakespeare and Thames.
The younger Edward Fell is generally referred to as Admiral Fell, although there is no evidence he was ever captain of anything, much less an Admiral, although he was a captain of commerce.
Thus the Admiral Fell Inn. So I get in the cab and say to the driver “the Admiral fell in.” Which seems really funny when you’re operating on about four hours sleep, fueled by a combination of coffee and Benadryl.
[composed and posted with ecto]
