Langsdale Link
Fall 2005

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I Found My Home in Langsdale Library
by Michael Shochet

I live in a historic neighborhood in west Baltimore known as Dickeyville.  Many Dickeyville residents, myself included, have a keen interest in the neighborhood’s history.  So when I had the opportunity to interview for a job at Langsdale Library, I was very excited to discover that Langsdale has a Special Collections department with a treasure trove of materials on local history.

Once I began working at the library, I needed to familiarize myself with the Special Collection's Web site, so I naturally started poking around for information about Dickeyville . Eventually I came across a finding aid indicating that in the Local History & Research Collection - located in Box 1, Series IV B - was a folder labeled simply "Dickeyville". Tom Hollowak, Langsdale's archivist, told me that this mostly contains student papers donated by Professor Emeritus Randall Byrne’s History of Baltimore class, taught in the 70's and 80's. Tom retrieved the box for me and I eagerly sifted through the folders until I found, in the "Dickeyville" folder, an eight page paper written by Timothy R. Moran in 1988.

Upon reading the name, I became even more excited, for the very house in which I reside belonged to the Moran family for almost 80 years. I anxiously read through the paper to see what it might have to say.

The beginning of the paper provided details of Dickeyville's history that are well known to most of its residents. However, toward the end, Moran began to discuss his own family and how much time he spent with his grandparents in a house that was clearly identified the one that I now call home. He provided numerous tidbits of family lore: His grandfather bought the house at auction in 1937 after the previous owner (Moran's great-great uncle) died without an heir; in the late 1800's, local Catholics would routinely celebrate mass in the living room; and a bathtub and a set of windows used in an addition to the house came from a ship called the Montcalm that was being refitted for combat during World War II.

I do not know what became of the bathtub, but the windows in my addition do look like they could have come from a ship. Since the Langsdale Special Collections department houses materials from the Steamship Historical Society of America, I thought I would see what information might be available on the Montcalm. With the help of steamship project archivist Robert Shindle, I was able to find numerous pictures of the Montcalm and a detail of its history in Canadian Pacific : The Story of the Famous Shipping Line, by George Musk. According to Musk, the Montcalm was a Canadian vessel that was indeed sent to Baltimore in 1943 for conversion into a submarine depot ship. The ship was decommissioned in 1950, but one set of windows, apparently, remains in Baltimore.

The RMS MONTCALM at Quebec City in prewar days.  Requisitioned by the Royal Navy in August of 1939, the vessel arrived in Baltimore in 1943 for conversion to a Naval Depot Ship.  The Canadian Pacific Line, for which the vessel had been built in 1920, had named it for the French General Montcalm but the British Admiralty had changed the vessel’s name to that of his British opponent in the French and Indian War, General Wolfe.  HMS WOLFE had participated in the Battle of the Atlantic as an Armed Merchant Cruiser before arriving in Baltimore and, after the conversion, served seven further years in support of allied destroyers and submarines.
 

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