The Patowmack Company

Washington became president of the Patowmack Company in January 1785, the announcement was not official until May. He was to receive the almost token salary of thirty shillings a year as president (Joel Achenbach, The Grand Idea, Simon & Schuster, NY, 2004).

According to the terms of its charter, the purpose of the Patowmack Company was the opening of the Potomac River to the highest point of permanent navigation. The minimum goal was Fort Cumberland in Western, Maryland, at which point a connection would be made with the improved Braddock Road, providing access to the rapidly filling lands tapped by the Ohio and its tributaries. The intention was to deepen the channel and cut canals around the falls to permit the passage of boats capable of carrying fifty barrels of flour in the driest seasons, according to Elizabeth Kytle in Home on the Canal (Cabin Johns, Md.: Seven Locks Press, 1983).

Washington the Canal Builder

While Washington’s support of the project was invaluable, he was a visionary, not an engineer. Notices were placed in newspapers in Baltimore and Philadelphia, but the problem was that no one in America knew how to build a canal.