Ephraim Francis Baldwin

American architect

Ephraim Francis Baldwin (October 4, 1837 – January 20, 1916) was an American architect, best known for his work for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and for the Roman Catholic Church.

Although born in Troy, New York, Baldwin lived most of his life in Baltimore, Maryland. After his father, a civil engineer, died, his mother moved to her hometown of Baltimore, where Baldwin would be educated and raised. He attended Loyola Blakefield from 1850 to 1852. He attended Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland briefly, from 1854 to 1855. Little else is known about Baldwin's personal life. He married Ellen Douglas Jamison in 1873; they had seven sons and two daughters, and his eldest son, Francis J. Baldwin, became an architect and joined his father's firm. He was known as a devout Catholic and was a member of various Catholic societies. In 1870, he was elected a director of the newly organized Maryland Academy of Arts. Baldwin died at his home in Baltimore in 1916. He is buried in New Cathedral Cemetery in Baltimore.

Baldwin developed a love and talent for architecture as a draftsman and apprentice in the offices of Niernsee & Neilson. His first work of any consequence was Mt. Hope Retreat (later the Seton Institute, now demolished) in Baltimore. He left Niernsee & Neilson in 1867 and practiced on his own for two years. In 1869, Baldwin entered into a partnership with Bruce Price, whom he had met as a trainee at Niernsee & Neilson. They are credited with designing 10 East Chase Street, Baltimore, Maryland, in about 1870. The partnership of Baldwin & Price was short lived: in 1873, Price moved to Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. During the next ten years, Baldwin practiced alone. In 1883, he entered in a long and fruitful partnership with Josias Pennington, who had been a draftsman at Baldwin & Price, and they formed the firm Baldwin & Pennington. Baldwin and Price were elected to membership in the Baltimore Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in December 1870. Baldwin served as a Secretary of the Chapter until his resignation in 1888 over a disagreement between himself and a competitor, George A. Frederick, another well known local architect and municipal engineer/architect, designer among many projects of the Baltimore City Hall (1867 1875) and several structures at the city's new expansive Druid Hill Park purchased 1860.

Over the course of his fifty year career, Baldwin designed some 500 churches, banks, office buildings, warehouses, railroad stations, municipal and public buildings, hospitals, schools, clubs, and residences. His work can be found from New York to Ohio, and from Pennsylvania to Georgia, though eighty percent of his work can be found in Maryland. About 150 of those buildings still stand.

. Retrieved on May 27, 2006. U. S. National Park Service, Historic American Engineering Record, Washington, D. C.(2003). "Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Harpers Ferry Station, Potomac Street, Harpers Ferry, Jefferson County, WV." Written Historical and Descriptive Data. Survey no. HAER WV 86.