WASHINGTON'S INTEREST

IN THE

POTOMAC COMPANY.

Washington's activity in the service of his country did not end in 1783. We refer not to his subsequent career as President of the United States, after the adoption of the present Constitution in 1788, but to his public spirit in opening up the Great West to trade and commerce, and in laying the basis for our nation's policy in the matter of internal improvements. This is a chapter in Washington's life that is not so well known. Materials for this subject were first collected by Mr. Andrew Stewart, member of Congress from Pennsylvania, in a Report on the "Chesapeake and Ohio Canal," in 1826.1 Some, but not all, of the Washington documents pertaining to this matter were re-published in Sparks' edition of the Writings of Washington. Mr. John Pickell, formerly one of the Directors of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, has worked over this material and has compiled fresh facts from official sources in a valuable monograph called, "A new chapter in the Early Life of Washington in connection with the narrative history of the Potomac Company."

'Reports of Committees of the House of Representatives, First Session, Nineteenth Congress. Report No. 228.

2 New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1856.

2

The connection of George Washington with schemes for opening communication between the Atlantic States and the Great West was broken by the Revolution. There is a report in George Washington's handwriting, dated as far back as 1754, stating the difficulties to be overcome in rendering the Potomac navigable. This report was made by Washington on his return from a trip across the Alleghanies, as messenger from Governor Dinwiddie to the commandant of the French forces on the Ohio. Washington went up the Potomac to Will's creek, or Fort Cumberland, and over the Alleghanies by the route which was afterwards taken by the unfortunate Braddock, in his expedition against the French and Indians, and which became known as Braddock's Road.3 A route was afterwards mapped out by Washington, from Cumberland over the mountains to the Youghiogheny river, which was destined to become the great avenue of travel and western migration. The construction of the Cumberland turnpike was a national work. Indeed it was called the National Road, and it must be regarded as one of the direct results of that policy of internal improvement, which, as we shall see, originated with Washington. The historic outcome of the Cumberland turnpike is, however, the Connellsville line, from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

There must be some germ for historical as for natural evolution. The Potomac scheme of George Washington contained in embryo about all that the present generation

1 Stewart's Report, p. 1. Sparks has not reprinted this document.

2 Washington's journal of a tour over the Alleghany Mountains. Writings, II., p. 432.

3 This route was originally discovered by Indians in the employ of Virginia and Pennsylvania traders. It was first opened by the Ohio Company in 1753. See Writings of Washington, II., p. 302.

The Cumberland Road was completed to Wheeling in 1820, at a cost of $1,700,000. Hildreth, History of the United States, (1789-1821) III., p. 699.

could reasonably demand. In a letter to Thomas Johnson,1 the first state-governor of Maryland, dated July 20, 1770, Washington suggests that the project of opening up the Potomac be "recommended to public notice upon a more enlarged plan" [i, e. passage to Cumberland and connection, by portage, with Ohio waters] "as a means of becoming the channel of conveyance of the extensive and valuable trade of a rising empire.2

1 Thomas Johnson, of Maryland, was the man who, in 1775, nominated George Washington for the office of Commander-in-Chief of the American army. See Writings of Washington, III., p. 480. He was one of the committee of correspondence for Maryland, in 1775, Samuel Chase, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Charles Carroll, barrister, and William Paca, being among his colleagues. He was delegate to Congress from 1775-77, and Governor of Maryland from 1777-79. Lanman, in his Biographical Annals of the Civil Government of the United States, is surely in error in saying that Johnson left Congress to raise a small army with which, as commander, he went to the assistance of Washington in New England. Governor Johnson called out extra militia in 1777 "to defend our liberties," but Washington left New England and retreated from Long Island in 1776, the Maryland Line covering the retreat, after having saved Putnam's troops from destruction by charging six times, with the bayonet, upon the left wing of the British army and by the sacrifice of five devoted companies, of whom Washington said: “My God! what brave men must I this day lose!" Colonel Smallwood was the commander of these brave young men from Baltimore, although he did not take part in the engagement, being "absent on duty in New York." (Bancroft, IX., p. 88.) But though Governor Johnson did not go to Washington's relief, these two were ever the warmest friends, and, after the Revolution, often visited each other, now at Rose Hill, near Frederick, and now at Mount Vernon. Johnson was Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1791-93, and, when, Jefferson left the Cabinet, was invited by Washington to become Secretary of State, but declined. John Adams was once asked how it was that so many Southern men took part in the Revolution, and he replied, that, if it had not been for such men as Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Chase, and Thomas Johnson, there never would have been any Revolution. See Lanman's Biographical Annals, "Thomas Johnson."

This letter to Thomas Johnson of Maryland is not to be found in Sparks' collection of the Writings of Washington but in Stewart's Report, pp. 27–29. The idea advanced is of colossal import and only the present generation can realize its full significance.

Here is the bahnbrechende Idee, whose resistless strength has opened the vistas of our inland commerce, and whose colossal proportions are now revealed, not only in the Baltimore and Ohio, which is the direct historic outgrowth of the Potomac scheme, but in the whole system of communication between East and West. It is a surprising fact that George Washington not only first mapped and recommended that line, which is now in very truth, "becoming the channel of conveyance of the extensive and valuable trade of a rising empire," but was also the first to predict the commercial success of that route through the Mohawk valley which was afterwards taken by the Erie Canal and the New York Central Rail Road. He not only predicted the accomplishment of this line of communication with the West, but he actually explored it in person. Before he had repaired to Annapolis to resign his commission, and even before the terms of peace with Great Britain had been definitely arranged, Washington was again turning his attention to the scheme of opening up the West to trade and commerce. He left his camp at Newburg on the Hudson, and made, on horseback, an exploring expedition of nearly three weeks' duration through the State of New York. In a letter to the Marquis of Chastelleux, he gives an account of his trip: "I have lately made," he says, "a tour through the lakes George and Champlain, as far as Crown Point: then returning to Schenectady, I proceeded up the Mohawk river to Fort Schuyler; crossed over Wood creek which empties into the Oneida lake, and affords the water communication with Ontario. I then traversed the country to the head of the Eastern branch of the Susquehannah, and viewed the lake Otswego, and the portage between that lake and the Mohawk river, at Conajoharie. Prompted by these actual observations, I could not help taking a more contemplative and extensive view of the vast inland navigation of these United States, and could not but be struck with the immense diffusion and importance of it; and with the goodness of that Providence which has dealt his favors to us with so

profuse a hand. Would to God we may have wisdom enough to improve them! I shall not rest contented until I have explored the Western country, and traversed those lines (or a great part of them) which have given bounds to a new empire."

1

After resigning his commission at Annapolis, Washington returned to Mount Vernon where he arrived the day before Christmas, 1783. "The scene is at last closed," he writes, four days afterwards, to Governor Clinton, of New York, who had accompanied Washington in his recent explorations, "I feel myself eased of a load of public care. I hope to spend the remainder of my days in cultivating the affections of good men, and in the practice of the domestic virtues."2 But how impossible it was for Washington to continue a mere private citizen, on the banks of the Potomac, solacing himself with the tranquil enjoyments of home life, as he had promised himself and his friends, is evinced by a letter to Thomas Jefferson, the following spring, in which he returns with fresh zeal to the project of national improvement. "How far, upon mature consideration," he says, "I may depart from the resolution I had formed, of living perfectly at my ease, exempt from every kind of responsibility, it is more than I can at present absolutely determine. .

The trouble, if my situation at the time would permit me, to engage in a work of this sort [the Potomac scheme] would be set at nought; and the immense advantages, which this country would derive from the measure, would be no small stimulus to the undertaking, if that undertaking could be made to comport with those ideas, and that line of conduct, with which I meant to glide gently down the current of life, and it did not interfere with any other plan I might have in contemplation." The connection of this revival of public

1 Stewart's Report, p. 2. Marshall's Life of Washington, V., p. 9.

* Writings of Washington, IX., p. 1.

Writings of Washington, IX., p. 32.