by John Clifford

For most of his life, George Washington had a vision of using the Potomac River as a trade route to the interior of the continent. Unfortunately, two obstacles, one political and one physical stood in their way. The political obstacle was our national government in the form of the Articles of Confederation. In addition, a series of five waterfalls; House Falls and Shenendoah Falls near Harper's Ferry, West Virginia; Seneca Falls, near Seneca, Maryland; and Great Falls, and Little Falls, just north of Washington; made navigating the river impossible. However, visionaries like Washington and pragmatists like Thomas Stone knew that the best way to make sure that the fledgling United States would continue to grow was to ensure that the frontier was economically linked to the coastal ports. Under the Articles of Confederation, the thirteen original states were essentially separate countries. This meant that any attempt to make the Potomac River navigable would require a treaty between the Commonwealth of Virginia and the State of Maryland. With this in mind, James Madison introduced a bill to the Virginia legislature naming himself, George Mason, Edmund Randolph, and Alexander Henderson commissioners to meet with a group of commissioners from Maryland. These commissioners were to "…frame such liberal and equitable regulations concerning said river as may be mutually advantageous to the two states and that they make report thereon to the General assembly." Thomas Johnson pushed the same bill through the Maryland Assembly naming himself, Thomas Stone, Samuel Chase and Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer as commissioners. In March of 1785, Thomas Stone, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Samuel Chase, George Mason and Alexander Henderson met with George Washington at Mount Vernon to create the treaty. The Mount Vernon Compact was signed and forwarded to the respective legislatures on March 28th. When the Compact reached the Maryland Senate, Stone introduced a further stipulation: "That joint application be made to Congress for consent to form a compact for the purpose of affording in and in just proportion naval protection to the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac river which may be left unprovided for by congress; --That currencies should be regulated; --That duties and imposts should be the same in both states; That commissioners should be appointed to regulate commerce; -- That Delaware and Pennsylvania should be notified and requested to join with Virginia and Maryland." The original compact and Stone's amendment were ratified by both states. This exposed a serious flaw in the Articles of Confederation; under Article Six, no state could enter into a treaty with another state without the approval of Congress. Maryland and Virginia did not have congressional approval when the Mount Vernon Compact was signed. To make matters worse, it was conceivable that one or more of the other states may have objections to the compact, particularly if they were developing their own trade routes to the west and objected to the competition from the Potomac River route. Compounding the problem was the fact that on January 5, 1785 the Virginia Assembly approved the creation of the Patowmack Company. The company was created "for opening and extending the Navigation of the River Patowmack." In other words, the Virginia Assembly had created a company to build skirting canals around the falls on a river that belonged to another state (the state boundary is the Virginia shoreline, not the center of the river), before they had approved the illegitimate Mount Vernon Compact allowing them to do so. This lead to a great deal of consternation in the Continental Congress, most of the delegates understood the need for the canals, but realized that there had to be an easier way to make it work. To this end, Maryland and Virginia invited the rest of the states to a convention in Annapolis in 1786 "to consider how far a uniform system in their commercial regulations may be necessary to their common interest." This Annapolis Convention also led to the constitutional convention in May of 1787.

Great Falls on the Potomac

Of all the problems facing the young company perhaps the most daunting was the actual construction of the canal at Great Falls. At Great Falls, the elevation of the river drops almost 80 feet in less than a mile, and part of the canal would have to be carved out of solid rock. Most of the canal is little more than a shallow ditch, perhaps six to ten feet deep, and fourteen feet wide. The canals dried up completely during droughts and were unusable during floods. Locks three, four, and five, are usually listed among the greatest engineering feats of the 18th century, and their construction marks the first time that black powder was used to blast through solid rock in the United States. Unfortunately, neither Stone nor Washington lived long enough to see the canal completed, Stone died in 1787, and Washington died in 1799; the canal wasn't finished until 1802. The canal, while mechanically successful, was a financial failure and was acquired by the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company in 1828.

Patowmack Canal Lock 1

It is not difficult to understand the motivation behind this engineering feat, both Stone and Washington depended on the Potomac river as a transportation link to the rest of the world. In Washington's case in particular, the commercial implications were enormous, the amount of trade that could be conducted between the rapidly growing interior and his home town of Alexandria was staggering. Stone no doubt realized that even though Alexandria would continue to be the main port on the river, towns like Georgetown and Port Tobacco would also benefit. Today, both the remains of the canal around Great Falls and Thomas Stone's home, Haberdeventure are National Parks. The canal is located in Great Falls Park, Virginia, a unit of the George Washington Memorial Parkway. Thomas Stone National Historic Site is located near Port Tobacco, Maryland. Mount Vernon is operated by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, and is also open to the public.