Shadows of a Forgotten World

The Stewart Iron Works The Stewart Iron Works, 3rd & Culvert St, Cincinnati, O G. Krug & Son Ironwork Makers of Artistic Wrough Iron Work Gustav Krug - Gustav Krug immigrated to the US from Germany around 1850. He started working for a blacksmith shop in Baltimore and eventually took it over. The company still exists today - and is run by Krug's descendents. It is the US's oldest operating ironwoks.   Gustav Krug,  Maker (?) 178 Saratoga St., Batlo. MD                                                           from the Woods Baltimore City Directory from 1885 G. Krug & Son website The Art of Steel - piece on the company from NPR

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries warehouses were built near the waterfront in Annapolis. They were used both to store goods coming into town from ships out in the Chesapeake Bay as well as to store goods like tobacco which were shipped to England. Some of these buildings have survived until today and still have the beams in place that used to be part of the hoist system, which lifted merchandise up to the house's storage spaces. These buildings now serve very different purposes.  This warehouse now houses a clothing shop   A waterfront warehouse c. 1800 (now it houses a museum)  This one houses an oyster bar

When I was in Annapolis I saw some oval plaques with images of trees, eagles, engines, etc. on some of the old buildings. I thought they were something exclusive to Annapolis, but when I returned to my suburb I found a couple of them there and realized it was something worth researching. It turns out that they are fire marks (insurance plaques ) , meaning they indicated that a building was insured against fire. “Beginning in the 1750s, some American insurance companies issued metal fire marks to policyholders to signify that their property was insured against fire damage. The fire marks bore the name and/or symbol of the insurer, and some included the customer’s policy number. The company or agent would then affix the mark to the policyholder’s home or business. For owners the mark served as proof of insurance and a deterrent against arson. For insurance companies the mark served as a form of advertising, and alerted volunteer firefighters that the property was insured,” from the ...