I'm not even sure if it's fair for me to rate this as I didn't actually visit the facility. But…read moresince I love yelping and wanted to give my take, I will! First, I had NO idea this was so close to the Inner Harbor. I actually accidentally found it when I was looking for off street parking, which I did find in the Little Italy area, also right by Inner Harbor. I parked and on my way, stopped by the house to get some pictures. I was mostly intrigued because I had already visited Fort McHenry, where the famous flag waved, and I saw the actual flag on exhibit at the Smithsonian. It's flippin' huge!
I'd like to visit next time but I had a limited amount of daylight hours (I was on a business trip) so I didn't make this a priority. From the reviews, looks like I missed out! This was the home of Mary Pickersgill who made the flag that hung over Fort McHenry and inspired "The Star Spangled Banner." Built in 1793, Pickersgill moved to Baltimore in 1806 and sewed the "Star Spangled Banner," Garrison flag that flew over Fort McHenry in the summer of 1814 during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812. The museum contains furniture and antiques from the period as well as items from the Pickersgill family.
A 12,600-square-foot museum was constructed next to Pickersgill's home. This museum houses exhibits on the War of 1812 and the Battle of Baltimore. It has an orientation theater, giftshop, exhibit galleries, and meeting rooms. The museum features a 30 by 42-foot tall window which was created to be the same color, size, and design of the original Star-Spangled Banner made by Pickersgill in the adjacent Flag House.
You can do quite a bit of touring just in the little area around the house. Down the street is the shot tower and across the street is information about Old Jonestown, which was the rival city to Baltimore. Jonestown, founded in 1732, was Baltimore's rival before the two towns merged in 1745. The Phoenix Shot Tower. In days of old, molten lead was dropped from the top of the tower into a vat of water at the bottom. The lead droplets, like raindrops, would form into perfect spheres, cool and solidify as they fell into the cooling water vat below. One of only a very few similar buildings left in the United States, the Phoenix Shot Tower was used to make lead shot from 1828 to 1892. Being constructed of one million bricks, the Shot Tower was the tallest building in the United States until the Washington Monument in Washington, DC, was completed after the Civil War.
The Flag House, Shot Tower, etc. are located in what was Jonestown, where prominent Americans lived alongside ordinary folks from 1790s to 1830s. The neighborhood houses a vibrant mixture of wealthy elites, merchants, artisans, labors, including free and slaved African Americans. Charles Carroll, the only Roman Catholic of the Declaration of Independence, was the richest man in American and Mary's neighbors. By the 1840s the upper class departed, to be replaced by German and Irish immigrants. This area also saw lots of damage from riots after MLK, Jr. assassination.