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The Potomac Company built five skirting canals around the major falls of the Potomac opening the river to commercial bulk goods traffic from the Chesapeake Bay mouth to Cumberland, Maryland in the Cumberland Narrows notch leading west across the Alleghenies, where it intersected Nemacolin's Trail near Braddock's Road, later made the first National Road, today's U.S. Route 40.
Few ventures were dearer to George Washington than his plan to make the Potomac River navigable as far as the Ohio River Valley. In the uncertain period after the Revolutionary War, Washington believed that better transportation and trade would draw lands west of the Allegheny Mountains into the United States and "bind those people to us by a chain which never can be broken."
Washington had been making plans for making the Potomac river navigable since before the Revolution, and a company was soon to be formed for the purpose. Rumsey's pole-boat, which promised to be able to ascend the river's chutes and swift currents, must have seemed a godsend to Washington, who wrote a certificate of commendation for Rumsey and ...
In 1785, Washington founded the Potowmack Company to improve the navigability of the Potomac River. His company built five skirting canals around the major falls: Little Falls (later incorporated in the C&O Canal), Great Falls in Virginia, Seneca Falls (opposite Violette's lock), Payne's Falls of the Shenandoah, and House's Falls near Harpers ...
A series of projects in the 18th and 19th centuries attempted to make the Potomac River navigable and connect the Ohio River valley and the East Coast.The first project was started by the Potomac Company, but it was the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company (C&O) that finished the project in the 1830s and 1840s.
The first guard lock was made of structures from George Washington's Potomac Company Little Falls skirting canal, and were repurposed for the C&O. [7] The second guard lock at Violette's lock, was confusingly numbered Lock 24 for a period of time when that was the end of the canal.
In 1793, at the start of Washington's second term, Lear decided to leave Washington and start out on his own (albeit with help from Washington). He started a company, T. Lear & Company, which focused on two things: working with Washington's Potomac Company to promote river traffic to the soon-to-be nation's capitol and participating in land ...
George Washington believed that an inland location would be more defensible against foreign military attack. However, his friends had an interest in the Potomac Company, which influenced his decision to locate the armory. [5] In 1796, the United States government purchased a 125-acre (0.51 km 2) parcel of land from the heirs of Robert Harper ...