Institute (then a college founded 1826, of various curriculums including mechanical arts besides today's art and design for which it is now world-famous), which was built on brick arches above a second market house with two large clock towers at each end in 1851, and held an additional large assembly hall/auditorium and classrooms on the second floor. This was one of the largest and notable buildings in America at that time, and was the site of several pre-Civil War national political party conventions (when Baltimore preceded Chicago as the common compromise city for presidential nominations, where both candidates Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce were nominated to be President. Another famous President, Abraham Lincoln gave his "Liberty Speech" (also known as the "Baltimore Address") on April 18, 1864, at the "Sanitary Fair" event, one of several held throughout the Civil War-torn nation, to raise money for the support and assistance of wounded soldiers, widows and orphans and other domestic needs by the United States Sanitary Commission, (a precursor to the later American Red Cross). Although he passed through Baltimore numerous times, it was the only occasion that the 16th President spoke in the city. He noted the calmer differences in the southern-oriented city, especially then three years after the secessionist tumult resulting in the disastrous Pratt Street Riots of April 19, 1861 which had solidified Baltimore's reputation and nickname as "Mobtown." It was also the only time that he spoke alive in the city although having traveled through several times in his earlier brief congressional career and presidential administration. The Maryland Institute and the second markethouse below was unfortunately destroyed and lost near the end of the Great Baltimore Fire of February 7–8, 1904, on the eastern edge of the blaze along with the rest of the downtown Baltimore business district in the Nation's third largest conflagration ever to hit an American city (Chicago's Great Fire of 1871 was first, followed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire). During the general mass re-construction of the city's "Burnt District" in the next few years, three new three-story elaborate brick market buildings adjacent to each other on the east side of the square, running east and west were built by 1907, under the supervision of the Centre Market Commission under chairman, General Felix Agnus, (the dominating owner/publisher of the city's largest and oldest newspaper, the "Baltimore American" dating from 1773, reorganized 1799).