Colonel Charles Beatty owned a ferry which did a thriving business between the Virginia shore and the foot of Frederick Street at Water Street.
Ebenezer Dodge had come from Salem, Massachusetts, and built up a successful coastwise trade with the East Indies, his younger brother, Francis, coming in 1798, of whom I shall have a great deal to say in another chapter.
Peter Casanave was much in evidence in business deals.
John M. Gannt was a prominent merchant; also, William King, whose name is still known in business here.
Among the lawyers were Philip Barton Key and Joseph Earle.
Doctor Magruder is spoken of over and over again. He seems to have been "the doctor" at that time. Doctor Weems also had a good practice.
From The Virginia Gazette of January 14, 1775, is taken this note in regard to a project much in the minds of the business men of George Town at that time:
At a meeting of the Trustees for opening the navigation of the Potomack River held in George Town December 1, 1774, Thomas Johnson, Jr., Attorney at Law, Wm. Deakins, Adam Steuart, Thomas Johns, Thomas Richardson, merchants of George Town, appointed to hire slaves for cutting canals around the Falls of the River, etc.
Of course, George Town, like every other town in the country at that time, was peopled largely by negroes. Some owners hired out the ones they themselves did not need, either for work of this kind or for domestic service. A delightful story is told of how one of the shipowners sent a "likely" young negress back to Scotland on one of his vessels, as a present to his mother. Many weeks later when the vessel returned, on it was Chloe with a note thanking "my dear son" for his gift, but saying, "I have had her scrubbed and scrubbed, but as it is impossible to remove the dirt and stain, I am returning her."
In 1788 Thomas Corcoran, who that year came to George Town from Baltimore, intended to go on to Richmond, but instead stayed and established a business in leather, says: "There were then in harbor ten square-rigged vessels, two of them being ships and a small brig from Amsterdam taking in tobacco from a warehouse on Rock Creek." The mouth of the creek at that time was a bay, wide and deep, and as late as 1751 the tide ebbed and flowed as far up as the present P Street bridge.