Maryland and Virginia, received an appropriation of $6666 from
each State for opening a road from the headwaters of the Potomac
to either the Cheat or the Monongahela, ‘as commissioners
The Potomac Company, authorized in 1785 by the legislatures of
Maryland and Virginia, received an appropriation of $6666 from
each State for opening a road from the headwaters of the Potomac
to either the Cheat or the Monongahela, ‘as commissioners…
shall find most convenient and beneficial to the Western
settlers.’ This was the only public aid which the enterprise
received; and the stipulated purpose clearly indicates the fact
that, in the minds of its promoters, the transcontinental
character of the undertaking appeared to be vital. The remainder
of the money required for the work was raised by public
subscription in the principal cities of the two States. In this
way 40,300 pounds was subscribed, Virginia men taking 266 shares
and Maryland men 137 shares. The stock holders elected George
Washington as president of the company, at a salary of thirty
shillings a year, with four directors to aid him, and they chose
as general manager James Rumsey, the boat mechanician. These men
then proceeded to attack the chief impediments in the Potomac–
the Great Falls above Washington, the Seneca Falls at the mouth
of Seneca Creek, and the Shenandoah Falls at Harper”s Ferry. But,
as they had difficulty in obtaining workmen and sufficient liquor
to cheer them in their herculean tasks, they made such slow
progress that subscribers, doubting Washington”s optimistic
prophecy that the stock would increase in value twenty per cent,
paid their assessments only after much deliberation or not at
all. Thirty-six years later, though $729,380 had been spent and
lock canals had been opened about the unnavigable stretches of
the Potomac River, a commission appointed to examine the affairs
of the company reported ‘that the floods and freshets
nevertheless gave the only navigation that was enjoyed.’ As for
the road between the Potomac and the Cheat or the Monongahela,
the records at hand do not show that the money voted for that
enterprise had been used.