Patowmack Canal

George Washington sought to turn the Potomac River into a navigable waterway linking the East Coast with the Ohio River Valley. To achieve this, the Patowmack Company, which he helped form, dredged parts of the riverbed and built skirting canals to bypass five falls along the Potomac River. Great Falls, where the river drops 76 feet in less than a mile, proved the most difficult obstacle. Beginning in 1785, work crews used black powder to blast through rugged cliffs and built five locks to raise or lower boats past the falls. The canal was completed in 1802, about two years after Washington died, and remained in service until 1830. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal later bought the Patowmack charter and kept Washington's waterway vision alive until 1924. Matildaville served as construction headquarters and as home for the canal superintendent, hired hands, indentured servants, and slaves, and the town included a gristmill, sawmill, foundry, inn, and market. As a young surveyor and military officer, Washington had foreseen the commercial potential of lands west of the Appalachian Mountains, and he presided over the canal project until becoming the first U.S. President in 1789. The route bypassed five falls, continued to the river's headwaters, and then extended by land 65 miles to Ohio River waters. Thousands of boats carried flour, whiskey, tobacco, and iron downstream and cloth, hardware, firearms, and other goods upstream, taking three to five days to travel down to Georgetown and 10 to 12 days to return to Cumberland, Maryland. The boats were usually tapered at both ends, measured up to 70 feet long and seven feet wide, and crude log rafts were also used. Red Seneca sandstone for the works came from Maryland nine miles upstream, and stonemasons left marks that identified their technical skill and helped track production and payment. The Potomac Company introduced a technology later used by dozens of canal companies on thousands of miles of canals.

Great Falls, Virginia · United States