চাঁদপাল ঘাট, কলকাতা, c১৮১৪
This view of riverside depicted by James Baillie Fraser with bathers and ferry near Chandpal Ghat, the bussiest ferry ghat of Calcutta for a long time. Existence of Chandpal Ghat as the southernmost Ghat on Hooghly is easily discernable in the ‘Plan of Fort William and part of the city of Calcutta’ surveyed in 1753. With the landing of Sir Philip Francis and his fellow Councillors of the Supreme Council for India under East India Company at Chandpal Ghat in 1774, it became a class apart from the other Ghats. Incidentally, this Ghat took its name not from an elite Indian, but from an obscure and forgotten native shopkeeper Chandranath Pal or Chand Pal who used to sell his petty merchandise beside the Ghat. Until the railway was opened the principal landing place was customarily the well-known Chandpal Ghat. Lord Cornwallis was the first Governor General who landed at this Ghat on 12th September 1786. Chandpal Ghat became the gateway not only of Calcutta but also of British India for a long time to come. Calcutta was then fast becoming the first City of Asia. Expansion in every sphere of it was then its hallmark, Ghats included. See more
This is plate one from James Baillie Fraser’s ‘Views of Calcutta and its Environs’. Fraser (1783-1856)