Navigation on the Upper Potomac and Its Tributaries Published online by WHILBR – Western Maryland Regional Library WHILBR 101 Tandy Drive Hagerstown, MD 21740. 301-739-3250 email: [email protected] http://www.whilbr.org/ © Dan Guzy 2011 This book is in copyright. No republication of any text or graphics may be made without permission of the author, Dan Guzy (e-mail: [email protected]). Title page photo: The sluice at House Falls, on the Potomac River, five miles upstream from the mouth of the Shenandoah River. John Semple built a navigational sluice here in 1769 to enable transport of pig iron from his Keep Triste Furnace to the forge at Antietam Creek. The Potomac Company later maintained and likely improved the sluice as part of its overall river navigation system. The House Falls sluice is among the oldest river navigational structures still in use in the United States, if not indeed the oldest. Except as noted, all photographs and graphics in this book were made by the author, Dan Guzy. ii Navigation on the Upper Potomac and Its Tributaries Contents i Title page v Foreword vi Acknowledgements Chapters: 1 Colonial Navigational Schemes 9 The Potomac Company and Potomac River Surveys 22 Canals, Locks, Sluices and Fish Weirs 27 Boats, Cargos and Tolls 38 The North Branch 44 Between the South Branch and the Shenandoah River 53 Tributaries and the South Branch 69 Between the Shenandoah River and Tidewater 87 Conclusion Appendices: 90 I. Report of Thomas Moore’s 1820 Potomac River Survey 96 II. Potomac Navigation as Described in the Joint Commissioners’ Report of their 1822 Survey 107 III. Descriptions of the Potomac Company’s Major Works 113 References iii Navigation on the Upper Potomac and Its Tributaries iv Navigation on the Upper Potomac and Its Tributaries Foreword As we now look at the upper Potomac River, the part above tidewater, and see only the occasional bass boat, kayak and canoe, we may find it hard to realize that this was once a river of commerce. Neverthe- less, before the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, river boats sixty to seventy-five feet in length regularly plied these waters, carrying 100 barrels and more of flour, or other cargos. Most published works discussing the Potomac Company (1785–1828) and earlier navigational schemes for the upper Potomac focus on their business and political aspects. This book will instead at- tempt to emphasize the history of navigation itself, that is, the history of routes, structures, boats, and car- gos on the upper Potomac and its tributaries. This book relied largely on scattered records, anecdotal accounts, and limited archeological evidence, which tell an interesting but incomplete story. The author hopes that this book will help inspire future re- searchers to fill in the gaps. v Navigation on the Upper Potomac and Its Tributaries Acknowledgements The first edition of this book was published and sold in printed form by the C&O Canal Association (C&OCA). Karen Gray of the C&OCA and Bill Trout of the Virginia Canals and Navigations Society made significant contributions to the first edition through their encouragement, reviews, and suggestions. The author appreciates the editing done then by Ned Preston and Dave Johnson of the C&OCA. This second edition updated and expanded material in the first. It was made available on the internet by WHILBR – Western Maryland Regional Library. The author greatly appreciates the work of Jill Craig in editing and publishing this online. Most importantly, the author must thank his wife, Kerren, for her patience and understanding those many times her husband drifted off into this river history project. vi Colonial Navigational Schemes Colonial Navigational Schemes The Potomac Company came after several other eighteenth century efforts to establish commerce through the Allegheny Mountains, into the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys, and further on to the Great Lakes. The Indians had long before established land and river routes through the wilderness. As colonial entrepreneurs from the coastal plain first settled beyond the falls of eastern rivers and looked further west for their fortunes, they replaced Indian paths with packhorse trails and later wagon roads. However, overland roads in early America were difficult to construct, maintain, and use. Water routes promised to provide the most economical means of transportation.1 The Potomac and Monongahela Rivers and their tributaries offered the potentially shortest water route from eastern seaports to the Ohio Valley. The upper Potomac’s main stem and its North Branch flow in a generally easterly direction and have cut a surprisingly smooth water route through the mountain ridges east of the Allegheny Plateau. The four major rapids of the upper Potomac—Shenandoah, Seneca, Great and Little Falls—are in a stretch of 60 miles above tidewater that was conveniently next to the rising colonial population centers. This made getting labor and supplies for constructing bypass canals and sluices easier than if the rapids had been further off in the hinterlands. Shenandoah (Harpers Ferry) Falls of the Potomac River—looking upstream. (D. Guzy) Archeological sites all along the shores of the upper Potomac River reveal much prehistoric settlement. The Indians had largely vacated the upper river before and during the European contact period, but continued to use it as a water route for their hunting, war, and trade activities. Around 1700, some tribes established temporary villages there and were followed by fur traders. By 1730, Europeans were interested in establishing farms and plantations along and near the upper Potomac, but disputes over land ownership needed to be resolved. A survey team explored the upper Potomac in 1736 to define and map Virginia’s northern border. Because of the lack of roads, the team found their “horses would be troublesome to us and a great 1 Colonial Navigational Schemes hindrance to the business at hand,” so they built dugout canoes and paddled upstream. From the mouth of the Shenandoah River to what is now the Hancock area, they passed about thirty new homes as they slowly surveyed up the river. They found just two more homes (at the mouth of the South Branch) and only abandoned Indian sites along the rest of their way to the “first head or spring of the Potomack headwaters.” The Fairfax Stone would later be placed at this spot at the end of the Potomac’s North Branch. Canoes likely supplied the survey team as it moved upstream in the wilderness. However, the records only document one such delivery—of food and sixteen gallons of rum sent from Conococheague Creek to the surveyors at the mouth of Savage River.2 Great Falls—looking upstream from Virginia side. (D. Guzy) The Ohio Company of Virginia was organized in 1747 to sell land in the Ohio Valley and to trade for fur with the Indians there. While Virginia’s colonial governor, Robert Dinwiddie, and the trailblazing Marylanders Thomas Cresap and Christopher Gist were important participants, the company’s membership was largely from families of Virginia’s Northern Neck—including the Lees, Masons, Mercers, and Washingtons—who lived along the lower Potomac River. Sons of these tidewater families sought to develop new plantations in the unsettled frontier, and hoped to profit from what commerce the upper river would bring. Members of these same families would later play key roles in the Potomac Company and its successor, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company. Established after European fur traders and farmers had already settled along the upper Potomac River, the Ohio Company was the first major commercial enterprise to attempt to exploit the river’s navigation. In a June 20, 1749 letter, some company members noted: the most convenient Passage will be into Potomack River which is Navigable by the largest Ships within ten Miles of the Falls. The Company’s Store house at Rock creek where they may land and have their Goods secured is sixty miles from Conococheege, a fine road from whence they may go by Water in the Company’s Boat to their Store house at Wills Creek about forty miles and from 2 Colonial Navigational Schemes thence the Company have cleared a Waggon Road about sixty miles to one of the head branches of the Ohio navigable by large flat bottomed boats where they propose to build Storehouses and begin to lay off their Lands. 3 This letter implied that the Ohio’s Company’s boats would run only between Conococheague and Wills Creek. However, in a November 7, 1749 letter, Lawrence Washington—George’s older half brother and one of the leaders of the company—talked about navigation down to what seems to have been Seneca or Great Falls: "the Potomack River is navigable for small Flats as high up as the Aligany Mountains except an obstruction of seventeen miles immediately above where the Tide flows.” Similarly, an 1834 House of Representatives’ report later recalled that the company’s “goods, imported from Great Britain . into the town of Belhaven, now called Alexandria, were carried eighteen miles over land to the head of Great Falls of Potomac, and there transferred to barges, from which they re-landed at Cumberland [Wills Creek], after a voyage of one hundred and seventy-six miles.”4 The Ohio Company of Virginia seems never to have fully developed trade with the Ohio Indians. However, its records show that it did much business with the Indian traders and farmers located along the upper Potomac.5 The company’s trade and land development schemes conflicted with France’s interests in the Ohio River Valley and led to war. The French and Indian War (1754–1763), settlement restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Easton (1758), Pontiac’s Rebellion (1763–1764), and subsequent English grants to rival trade companies stifled further commerce of the Ohio Company of Virginia.