| To Cuyahoga River | 125 Miles |
| Up same to Portage | 60 Miles |
| Portage to Bever Ck | 8 Miles |
| Down Bever Ck to the Ohio | 85 Miles |
| Up the Ohio to Fort Pitt | 25 Miles |
| Mouth of Yohiogany | 15 Miles |
| Falls to Ditto | 50 Miles |
| Portage | 1 Mile |
| Three Forks or Turkey foot | 8 Miles |
| Ft. Cumberland or Wills Creek | 30 Miles |
| Alexandria | 200 Miles |
| Total | 607 Miles |
Bear in mind that the "mouth of the Yohiogany" is now McKeesport, that the "falls to ditto" indicates Ohio Pyle and that "Three Forks" means the present locality of Confluence, and compare the distances with present day surveys. They will not vary a mile on the entire stretch. Ask the eminent engineers of the Lake Erie & Ohio River Canal if they can add much to Washington's ideas. Their answer will give you added reasons for celebrating on the 22nd of next February.
In February, 1785, the laws were passed by the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia authorizing the formation of a company for the improvement of the Potomac river and books for the subscription of stock were opened at once. The total shares were 403 and the capital of the new Potomac Company was 40,300 pounds. Washington was elected its president and James Rumsey, the inventor, whose monument we saw at Shepherdstown, was general manager. In the summer of 1785 the work of blasting rock and other obstructions was begun between Great Falls and Harper's Ferry.
The work was prosecuted with vigor, but during the winter of 1786-87 there came a hint of labor troubles. Common laborers were paid 32 shillings (about $8.00) a month "with the usual ration except spirits, and with such reasonable allowance of spirits as the manager may from time to time think proper." The question of spirits seems to have been the chief cause of the trouble, for it is recorded that the company contracted for the supply of rum at "two shillings per gallon." It must have been the same kind of stuff that is peddled across the river to "dry" Virginians today.
In 1787 Washington withdrew from active work in the company to accept the presidency of the Republic. His retirement sealed the fate of the corporation. Its affairs languished for years and in 1823 was declared defunct.
In the same year—1823 a date since famous for the promulgation of the Monroe doctrine—the navigation project was again revived in the Maryland legislature. It was estimated that the proposed work of cutting a canal from tide-water (Washington, D. C.) up the Potomac, across the mountains to a branch of the Ohio, and down the same, at $1,500,000, of which Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia were each to subscribe one-third. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company was incorporated by the Maryland legislature in 1825 with a capital stock of $6,000,000, Congress having previously made an appropriation of $30,000 for preliminary surveys. The route selected for the canal alarmed the citizens of Baltimore. They saw that it would divert trade from their city. About this time Philip E. Thomas, a Baltimore banker, and George Brown, an enterprising resident of that city, took earnest counsel between themselves to save the traffic for their town. On the 19th of February, 1827, they held a meeting with their townsmen which was destined to become memorable in the whole history of transportation.
Tom Thumb—B. & O. 1830
Up in Quincy, Mass., and in Maunch Chaunk, Pa., for a year or two wagons had been operated on rails, and Mr. Thomas inquired of his confreres why a "rail road" would not be practicable from Baltimore to the Ohio. The whole world knows the answer: On February 28, 1828, a charter was granted to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, Mr. Thomas resigned the presidency of the Machanics' Bank in Baltimore to become the head of the first American railway system.