THE POTOMAC COMPANY.

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region, is the third commercial city in the United States. She possesses decided advantages over any Atlantic city in competing for a portion of the commerce of the northwest.'

These advantages were not overlooked or unappreciated by the citizens of our State, and numerous efforts as we shall see, founded upon private as well as public patronage, to facilitate and improve the means of internal transportation, attest the interest it excited about the years 1802-9.

When it was decided that the bed of the Potomac River could not be improved for the purposes of a canal, the Board of Public Works of Virginia, in pursuance of a resolution of the General Assembly of that State, adopted on the 8th of January, 1820, appointed Thomas Moore their chief engineer, "to examine the waters of the Potomac above the upper line of the District of Columbia, and to explore the country between the Potomac and Ohio on the one side, and the Potomac and Rappahannock on the other, with a view to ascertain and report upon the practicability of effecting a communication by canal between the three rivers." After the completion of the surveys, Mr, Moore made a report, and the governor in December, 1820, in a message to the Legislature of Virginia for the first time, publicly affirmed the practicability of uniting the navigable waters of the Potomac with the Ohio by one continued canal. In view of this information, the States of Virginia and Maryland, early in the year 1821, appointed a joint commission, consisting of Moses T. Hunter, William T. T. Mason, William Naylor, Allan S. Fenwick and Elie Williams, "to examine the affairs of the Potomac Company, the state of the navigation of the Potomac River, its suceptibility of improvement, and to make report whether the said company had complied with its charter granted by the two States, and its ability to comply within a reasonable time; and whether any, or what aid should be given to the said company, and what would be the best means of effecting an improvement in the navigation of the said river." With the assistance of Mr. Moore, they entered upon their labors in July, 1822, and after a careful examination of the work and the affairs of the company in December, made a report that the Potomac Company had failed to comply with its charter, and they did not think the company would be able to do so; that the company had expended their capital stock and the tolls received, and had incurred a heavy debt which they would not be able to discharge; that it would be inexpedient to give further aid to the company, and the only thing to be done was to cancel their charter and adopt some more effectual mode of improving the navigation of the river. After review

By the New York Central Road from Chicago to New York, it is 185 miles further than from Chicago to Baltimore; by the New York and Erie, 166 miles; and by the Allentown route, the distance is 104 miles greater to New York than by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad route, from Chicago to Baltimore. From Louisville to Baltimore, the distance (through Cincinnati) is 696 miles, or 291 less than to New York by the Ohio and Mississippi and New York and Erie

lines, and 209 less than to New York by the New York Central, and 155 less than by the Allentown route of the Pennsylvania Road. Through the Ohio and Mississippi Road to Cincinnati, and the Marietta and Cincinnati Road thence, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad presents a line 210 miles less in distance to Baltimore from St. Louis than the average distance by the three trunk lines used from St. Louis to New York.

ing the different kinds of improved inland navigation, they express the opinion that the proposed canal if constructed would make Cumberland the entrepot of the trade of the West, and that nothing would be wanting to ensure to the citizens of Baltimore, with their capital and enterprize, the largest share of the advantages that would result from it, but a connection with the city by a lateral canal from the head of the eastern branch of the Potomac or Bladensburg, to the Patapsco at Elkridge, supposed by the required route, to be about twenty-five miles; "or if it should accord more with the wishes and interests of the Baltimoreans to connect with the canal at a higher point of the Potomac, they suggested that a survey be made to test the practicability of a branch from the foot of the Catoctin mountain, or any point below it, to Baltimore."

This report was transmitted by the Governors of Virginia and Maryland, to their respective Legislatures in January, 1823, and out of it sprung the idea of "The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal."

In accordance with public sentiment, which had been excited in favor of the new project, the Potomac Company, on the 3d of February, 1823, adopted a resolution signifying their willingness to surrender their charter to a new company upon liberal terms, and about the same time a bill was offered in the Maryland Legislature, to incorporate a new joint stock association, entitled "The Potomac Canal Company." The estimated cost of the work was $1,500,000, of which it was proposed that Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, should each subscribe one-third. Great efforts were made to induce the Legislature of Maryland to pass the bill as originally offered, and the House of Delegates seemed generally favorable to it, but the bill, after being variously amended, was finally withdrawn.

The

The progress of the bill caused much excitement in Baltimore. people of that city, notwithstanding they were in favor of internal improvements, and had freely subscribed for the construction of roads, bridges, etc., were unanimously opposed to this bill, because it called for an appropriation of the funds or credit of the State (one-third of which they would be compelled to pay) to an object that would be rather an injury than a benefit to the trade of the city. Though they had but a fortieth part of the power of legislation in the House of Delegates, they paid one-third part of the taxes of the State, and as the funds of the State were not sufficient to meet the ordinary expenses of about $30,000 a year, the financial burden bore with great pressure upon them. Besides, they especially objected to the Potomac canal, because, under the bill in question, the canal was to terminate as at present, in Georgetown, and the privilege was virtually denied them of tapping it so as to connect it by a canal with Baltimore, if they so desired, and besides, the State was asked to cede to the company all its right to the waters of the river thus virtually preventing the future connection of the canal with the City of Baltimore. To produce concert of action in the next session of the Maryland and Virginia Legislatures, the friends of the measure began to hold

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT CONVENTION.

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meetings in various parts of the country. The first meeting was held at Leesburg, Loudon County, Virginia, on August 25, 1823. It passed resolutions recommending to the several counties and corporations to elect delegates to a general meeting to be held in the city of Washington, on the 6th of November, ensuing. This meeting was followed by many others in Maryland and Virginia, and resulted in the assembling of a convention in the city of Washington, on Thursday, the 6th day of November, 1823, with delegates from Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and District of Columbia. The convention contained many of our most distinguished citizens. Dr. Joseph Kent, of Prince George's County, (a member of Congress,) was chosen chairman. They determined upon the formation of a joint stock company, with powers to cut a canal from the tide-water of the Potomac, by the way of Cumberland, to the mouth of Savage River, and ultimately to the navigable waters of the Monongahela or Ohio Rivers; with authority to the States of Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania to make connections with it by lateral canals. They also appointed committees to memorailize the Legislatures of the above mentioned States, and the Congress of the United States, for a concurrent act of incorporation, and their assistance in providing the requisite means to construct the work. The committee appointed for Maryland, was composed of Grafton Duvall, George Mason, of Charles, C. Thomas Kennedy, J. C. Herbert and James Forrest. The name fixed upon in consequence of the authority conferred on the State of Maryland to extend it to the City of Baltimore, was "The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company." A resolution was also passed, looking to the ultimate extension of the canal to Lake Erie. After appointing a central committee consisting of Charles Fenton Mercer, John Mason, Walter Jones, Thomas Swann, John McLean, Wm. H. Fitzhugh, H. L. Opie, Alfred H. Powell, P. C. Pendleton, A. Fenwick, John Lee, Frisby Tilghman and Robert W. Bowie, to take charge of the whole subject, and obtain the assent of the Potomac Company to the measure, the convention after a session of three days, adjourned.1

In fulfillment of the duties assigned to them, the committees transmitted memorials to Congress and the Legislatures of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, for an act of incorporation, together with a project of a law prepared by the Central Committee. The memorial was first sent to the Legislatures of Virginia and Maryland at the opening of their sessions. In the meantime, however, on the 8th of December, 1823, General Robert Goodloe Harper, and a number of the most prominent citizens of Baltimore, waited upon the mayor and requested him to call a meeting of the citizens at the Exchange, for the purpose of taking into consideration "the expediency of promoting a connection between the Ohio and the Chesapeake, at Baltimore, by a canal through the District of Columbia;" and of appointing a committee to attend the Legislature for this purpose.

1 Niles' Register, xxv., p. 173.

The mayor readily acceded to the proposal and the meeting was called for the thirteenth of the month, but postponed until the twentieth, for the purpose of also taking into consideration whether the citizens of Baltimore "preferred a canal to be made first to the Susquehannah River or to the Ohio." On the day appointed the meeting assembled, when the mayor was made chairman, and General Harper in a "great speech," explained his views "to the citizens of Baltimore, on the expediency of promoting a connection between Ohio at Pittsburgh, and the waters of the Chesapeake at Baltimore, by a canal through the District of Columbia."

At this period the cities of Georgetown, Alexandria and Washington, felt great apprehensions about the rivalry with Baltimore in the advantages that were to flow from the projected communication with the West. Baltimore desired that the canal should terminate at Baltimore as originally intended, and not at the tide-water of the Potomac. Baltimore at this period by the advantages of her position enjoyed the whole trade of the Chesapeake, that of the fertile, populous and highly cultivated counties of Pennsylvania, between the Susquehannah and the mountains, that of Frederick and Washington Counties in Maryland; and the whole downward trade of the Susquehannah. These natural advantages enabled her to leave Georgetown and Alexandria far behind, although they commenced their career about the same time with her, and to swallow up all the towns which existed on the shores of the Chesapeake, at the time when her foundations were laid. These advantages she feared would be now overcome by the small towns on the Potomac, and therefore the great majority of the meeting at the Exchange preferred a canal to the Susquehannah to secure the trade in the interior of Pennsylvania instead of one from Cumberland to Georgetown."

The improvement of the Susquehannah River, as we have seen, had been from a very early period a favorite object with the people of Baltimore, and they determined that the Legislature should not be diverted by the magnificence of other projects from the Susqehannah canal upon which their prosperity so largely depended.

At the December session of the Legislature in 1822, Theodorick Bland, George Winchester and John Patterson, were appointed commissioners "to lay out and survey a route for a canal, which will connect the waters of the Susquehannah with the City of Baltimore, beginning at the Conewago Falls, or on a point of said river, which the commissioners may deem the most practicable; and they shall also be directed to lay out and survey a route for a Canal from the same point on the Susquehannah or Conewago Falls, to the head of tide-water, on the Susquehannah; and report upon the practicability, the expense, and other necessary circumstances attending the same to the next General Assembly." They accepted their appointment in May following, and in June set out to examine the New York and Erie Canal. Arriving in New York they obtained an interview with Mr. De Witt Clinton, the great founder and advocate of the canal policy in the State of New York, from