Paw Paw, the westernmost settlement in Morgan County, was incorporated on April 8, 1891 after developing as a canal, railroad, orchard, and tannery boomtown within a bend of the Potomac River. Colonial travelers heading west, including George Washington, often forded the river or crossed the mountain gap there, and in 1928 a bridge replaced the pre-Civil War ferry. Braddock’s French and Indian War army camped south of town, and that site later served in the Civil War as the federal Camp Chase. The B&O Railroad arrived in 1838, and by the 1930s six trains a day stopped at the depot before passenger service ended in 1961. The Paw Paw Pullman car was dedicated on April 16, 1948 and assigned to the Capitol Limited route from Washington, DC to Chicago. Beginning in 1836, the C&O Canal Company spent 14 years carving the 3118-foot Paw Paw Tunnel through Sorrell Ridge, cutting out 6 miles of river bends; promoted as a wonder of the world, it became the largest manmade structure on the canal at 24 feet high and was lined with more than 6 million bricks. A mile north of town, the restored towpath now forms part of the C&O Canal National Park. The town takes its name from the paw paw, a fruit that grows along the river and ridge, is North America’s largest native edible fruit, blooms with purplish-brown flowers in April, ripens in September, and was a favorite dessert of George Washington; on September 18, 1806, William Clark wrote that his party, entirely out of provisions, could live very well on the pappaws.
