Elizabeth Mills Riverfront Park

For centuries, American Indians lived along the Potomac River and Goose Creek, harvesting the bounty of the river and fertile floodplain. Samuel Clapham built Elizabeth Mills in 1807 and named it after his daughter, and by Goose Creek its ruins remain. An 1850s canal connected with the C&O Canal, and near the mill site are evidence of the Goose Creek Canal and a double canal lock built of Seneca sandstone in the 1840s and 50s, used only once. The broader effort to make Goose Creek and Little River navigable by locks and dams was acknowledged as a failure in 1857 by H.E. Powell, president of the Goose Creek and Little River Navigation Company.

Lansdowne, Virginia · United States