Crude as were the material methods by which Washington hoped to
accomplish this end, in spirit he saw the very America that we
know today; and he marked out accurately the actual pathways of
inland commerce that have played their part in the making of
America
Crude as were the material methods by which Washington hoped to
accomplish this end, in spirit he saw the very America that we
know today; and he marked out accurately the actual pathways of
inland commerce that have played their part in the making of
America. Taking the city of Detroit as the key position,
commercially, he traced the main lines of internal trade. He
foresaw New York improving her natural line of communication by
way of the Mohawk and the Niagara frontier on Lake Erie–the
present line of the Erie Canal and the New York Central Railway.
For Pennsylvania, he pointed out the importance of linking the
Schuylkill and the Susquehanna and of opening the two avenues
westward to Pittsburgh and to Lake Erie. In general, he thus
forecast the Pennsylvania Canal and the Pennsylvania and the Erie
railways. For Maryland and Virginia he indicated the Potomac
route as the nearest for all the trade of the Ohio Valley, with
the route by way of the James and the Great Kanawha as an
alternative for the settlements on the lower Ohio. His vision
here was realized in a later day by the Potomac and the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the Cumberland Road, the Baltimore and
Ohio Railway, and by the James-Kanawha Turnpike and the
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway.
