Potomac Navigation Company records

Collection — Shelf: 122.H.5

Identifier: RM-1196

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection is comprised of three different types of documents: various accounts from individuals who have worked for the Potomac Navigation Company; lists of all the men employed by the company which details the amount of work that was done; and receipts and invoices.

Dates

1785-1786

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research during scheduled appointments. Researchers must complete the Washington Library’s Special Collections and Archives Registration Form before access is provided. The library reserves the right to restrict access to certain items for preservation purposes.

Biographical / Historical

The Potomac Navigation Company was a cooperative project between Maryland and Virginia to expand the Potomac River and establish navigable waterways that would further develop commercial trade. Established in 1785, George Washington was the first major investor as well as the first president of the company. And along with Thomas Johnson, Thomas Sim Lee, George Gilpin, and John Fitzgerald, he was appointed director of the company. The Potomac Navigation Company employed James Rumsey, inventor of the steamboat, to manage the mechanics of building the canals, Richardson Stewart as his assistant, and William Hartshorn as the treasurer. They supervised hundreds of laborers, indentured servants, and slaves to build five canals surrounding major waterfalls in the area: House’s, Shenandoah, Seneca, Little Falls and Great Falls.

Although supported by both the Virginia and Maryland Assemblies, the company was constantly plagued with difficulties and struggled to sell shares to interested buyers. Water levels prevented boats from reaching their destinations, the company had difficulty securing loans, and the locks were in a constant state of repair; despite these hardships, by 1802 they had created 220 miles of navigable waterways between the Savage River and Washington, D.C. By the 1820s, a proposal was passed to build a canal that would travel from Washington, D.C. and to the Ohio River; thus transforming the Potomac Navigation Company to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company.

Extent

.5 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Arrangement

This collection is organized into three series: Accounts, Lists of Workmen, and Receipts. Within each of these series, the collection is in date order. The Lists of Workmen is further defined by region: Seneca Falls, Shanandoah Falls, and Great Falls, all of which are in date order.

Related Materials

The following manuscripts, reproduction files, and books relate to the formation or business of the Potomac Navigation Company.

Manuscripts:

Bill, Washer Blunt to Potomac Comp[any], 1786 March 20
Letter, Mount Vernon to Judge Michael Jenifer Stone, Charles County, Maryland, 1785 June 15
Letter, Blenhiem to George Washington, 1785 July 10
List of Workmen employed at the Shanandoah Falls from the 4th of August to the 26th of September 1787
List of Workmen at Great Falls 1787 April 11- May 12
Letter, Philadelphia, to Tobias Lear, 1794 December 12
Letter, Philadelphia to Tobias Lear, 1794 December 22
Drawing of an invention for raising and lowering boats over the Great Falls of the Potomac to avoid the construction of locks
Letter, Germantown to William Pearce, 1794 August 17
Letter, Philadelphia to Tobias Lear, 1795 December 26
Letter, Philadelphia to [Tobias Lear], 1795 February 18
Newspaper Article, George Washington’s arrival in Georgetown for a meeting with fellow business associates of the “Potowmack Co.”
Newspaper Article, George Washington’s arrival in Georgetown for a meeting with fellow business associates of the “Potowmack Co.”
Book of Sales and Mount Vernon Property, 1800-1803
Letter, George Town to George Corbin Washington, 1828 May 7
Certificate to Fielding Lewis, 1828 June 3
Bond, George C. Washington and [] to John A. Washington and Bushrod C. Washington (executors of Bushrod Washington, deceased) 1832
Bond, George C. Washington (trustee of Bush. Washington Jr.’s children) and [] to John A. Washington and Bushrod C. Washington (executors of Bushrod Washington deceased), 1832

Reproduction Files:

Broadside, Potomac Company, 4 February 1762
Letter, Mount Vernon to Colonel John Fitzgerald, 26 November 1785
Account, James Rumsey to Archibald Reynolds, 16 July 1785
Letter, Mount Vernon to Colonel Jno. Auge. Washington, 1 October 1786
Letter, Philadelphia to [George Augustine Washington], 12 August 1787
Receipt, Jesse [Lun] Jun. and Jacob Snither to William Hartshorne and Co., 25 June 1787
Letter, Tobias Lear, 14 December 1794
Letter, Mount Vernon to Mr. Archd. McLean, 6 August 1798
Draft, Bushrod Washington to Lawrence Lewis, 6 August 1825
An act to enable Lawrence Lewis to move stock to the Potomac Co., 21 March 1832

Books:

Achenbach, Joel, The Grand Idea: George Washington’s Potomac and the Race to the West, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004. Call No. F187 .P8 A23 2004
Bacon-Foster, Corra, Early Chapters in the Development of the Patomac Route to the West, Washington: Columbia Historical Society, 1912 Call No: F187. P8 B13
Bicentennial Notes on George Washington by the Michigan State Commission for the George Washington Bicentennial, 193, No. 5- Washington and the Critical Period, 1783-1789 by Evertt Somerville Brown Call No: E312.15 .M54 1931
Durham, C.J.S., Washington’s Potowmack Canal Project at Great Falls: A Great Falls Park and Nature Reserve: A Proposal for the Preservation of a Natural Area and the Restoration of a Historic Site as a lasting Monument to George Washington at the Great Falls of the Potomac in Virginia, Nature Conservancy, 1957 Call No: P187. M7 D8 1957
Hahn, Thomas F. and Joseph R. Prentice, George Washington’s Canal at Great Falls Virginia, Shepardstown, WV: American Canal and Transportation Center, 1976 Call No: F232. P8 H2 1976
Howlett, Lynn Doney, The Potowmack Canal: From Canal to Consitution, McLean, VA: The Virginia Canals and Navigation Society. Call No: F187. P8
Hyde, Arnout and Ken Sullivan, The Potomac: A Nation’s River, Charleston, WV: Cannon Graphics, 1994 Call No: F187 .P8 H92 1992
Kapsch, Robert J., The Potomac Canal: George Washington and the Waterway West, Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, 2007. Call No: F187. P8 K23 2007
Martin, Oliver, The Chesapeake and Potomac Country, The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, 1928 Call No: F187 .C5 M4
Metcalf, Paul, Waters of the Potowmack, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1982.
Pickell, John, A New Chapter in the early life of George Washington, in connection with the narrative history of the Potomac Company, New York: D. Appleton, 1856 Call No: E312.29 .P59
Potomac American Reflections [audiovisual], Robert Cole Films, 1992 Call No: F187 .P8 P68 1992
Stanford, Homer Reed, The Historic Potomac— Beginning with 1740, Newcomen Society of England, American Branch, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940 Call No: F187. P8 S7 1940
Tilp, Frederick, This was Potomac River, Alexandria, VA: Frederick Tilp, 1978 Call No. F187 .P8 T54