Historic Highways of America/Volume 13/Chapter 3

by Archer Butler Hulbert

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CHAPTER III

THE CHESAPEAKE AND OHIO CANAL AND ITS RIVAL

IT is exceedingly interesting to note that the old plan of Washington's, by which the Middle West and Northwest were to be held in fee by those who controlled the Potomac, was as dominant now in 1823 as it was, within a limited circle, in 1784. In fact this is what the Potomac Company, the Potomac Canal Company, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company and the Baltimore and Ohio Railway Company have all stood for—this commercial control of the trans-Allegheny empire. Our general plan demands a full examination of this phase of our subject at the time at which we now have arrived—1823.

In view of the canal project now on the tapis the Potomac Company adopted a resolution on February 3, 1823, signifying their willingness (!) to surrender their charter on liberal terms to a new company for the prosecution of the new plan of communication. A bill was introduced, in accordance with the same plan in the Maryland legislature, to incorporate a joint stock company to be known as "The Potomac Canal Company." It was estimated that the proposed work of cutting a canal, from Potomac tide-water (Washington, D. C.) up the valley, across the mountains to a branch of the Ohio, and down the same, at a million and a half dollars, of which Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia were each to subscribe one-third."^[1]

A commission was appointed by Virginia and Maryland to examine the old route across the Alleghenies marked out by Washington with a view to the possibility of constructing a canal from the head of the Potomac to one of the heads of the Ohio. James Schriver made an examination of the Alleghenies with reference to the new canal in the summer of 1823, and the result was given to the public in the form of a report entitled: An Account of Surveys and Examinations with Remarks and Documents relative to the projected Chesapeake and Ohio, and Ohio and Lake Erie Canals.^[2] Though we find Mr. Schriver a United States Associate Civil Engineer in 1826,^[3] he seems to have made his explorations "to satisfy himself and a few friends."^[4] Since the day of Washington's explorations in 1784 it was generally understood that the most practicable route for a road or canal from the Potomac to an Ohio tributary would follow the portage route outlined by Washington from the Potomac at the mouth of Savage River to the Cheat River. But the emphasis given by Washington to this portage was not based wholly on utilitarian motives. He desired his route to keep within the bounds of Virginia and Maryland—the possessors of the Potomac—for any more northerly course would carry the route into Pennsylvania. Washington, however, was searching for waterways which could be made navigable; Schriver, a generation later, sought only for streams which could furnish sufficient water for a canal. As a result, Schriver was satisfied with the head of the Youghiogheny which, though it could never be made navigable, yet contained plenty of water to fill a canal. Schriver's proposed route, therefore, left the Potomac at the mouth of Savage River, ascended that stream and its tributary, Crabtree Creek. Reaching Hinch's Spring by means of a tunnel,^[5] the canal would follow the North Fork of Deep Creek and Deep Creek itself to the Youghiogheny. Descending the Youghiogheny and Monongahela, the Ohio River would be reached at Pittsburg. The vital question was thought to be whether there was a sufficient current of water to supply the summit level of the canal at the tunnel under Little Backbone Mountain.

The bill to incorporate the Potomac Canal Company, however, failed to pass the Maryland legislature. This brings us at once face to face with one of the most interesting phases of the subject—the position and commanding influence of Baltimore in the commercial world at that day. "The progress of the [Potomac Canal Company] bill," writes the Maryland historian Scharf, "caused much excitement in Baltimore. The 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; besides, the State was asked to cede to the company all its rights to the waters of the river [Potomac], 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 meetings in various parts of the country. . . [These meetings] 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."^[6]

The business of the convention, of which Congressman Joseph Kent was chosen chairman, was to advocate the enlargement of the plan of the Potomac Canal Company so that it would include Baltimore as its eastern terminus, by means of a lateral canal or an extension of the main canal from its terminus at Georgetown. "Whereas, a connection of the Atlantic and Western waters, by a canal," read the introduction to the resolutions adopted, "leading from the seat of the general government to the river Ohio, regarded as a local object, is one of the highest importance to the states immediately interested therein, and, considered in a national view, is of inestimable consequence to the future union, security, and happiness of the United States:

"Resolved, unanimously, That it is expedient to substitute, for the present defective navigation of the Potomac river above tide water, a navigable canal, by Cumberland to the mouth of Savage Creek, at the eastern base of the Alleghany, and to extend such canal, as soon thereafter as practicable, to the highest constant steamboat navigation of the Monongahela or Ohio river."^[7] Another resolution outlined a plan of enlargement of the Potomac Canal Company by the appointment of committees "each consisting of five delegates, to prepare and present, in behalf of this assembly, and in co-operation with the central committee, hereinafter provided, suitable memorials to the congress of the United States, and the legislatures of the several states before named [Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia], requesting their concurrence in the incorporation of such a company and their co-operation, if necessary, in the subscription of funds for the completion of the said canal: And whereas, by an act of the general assembly of Virginia, which passed the 22d February, 1823, entitled, ‘an act incorporating the Potomac canal company,’ the assent of that state, so far as the limits of her territory render it necessary, is already given to this object, and for its enlargement to the extent required by the preceding resolution, the said act appears to furnish, with proper amendments, a sufficient basis: Be it, therefore, resolved That it will be expedient to accept the same as a charter for the proposed company, with the following modifications, viz: That in reference to its enlarged purpose, the name be changed to the ‘Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.’” These resolutions^[8] are practically embodied in the act incorporating the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.^[9]

The two hundred delegates concluded their convocation by a banquet at Brown’s Hotel, Washington, on Saturday evening. Certain of the “spontaneous sentiments” were: By the Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, “the first right and the first duty of nations—self-dependence and self-improvement;” by the Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, “Canal navigation between the Atlantic and the western waters, essentially connected with the commerce, the defence, and the union of the states—may it receive the patronage and support of the nation;” by C. F. Mercer, soon to be the first president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, “the eastern and western country—whom the Author of Nature has joined together, may no man put asunder;” by Mr. James Schriver, pioneer surveyor on the upper Potomac, “The Chesapeake and Ohio; they have ‘passed meeting’^[10]—may their marriage be speedily consummated." A toast which tells of Clay's presidential ambitions was proposed by B. S. Forrest of Maryland after the speaker's withdrawal from the board in the following technical phrase: "Henry Clay, qualified to pass the summit level; neither giddy in ascending, nor dismayed in descending!" The members of the important Central Committee were Charles F. Mercer, John Mason, Walter Jones, Thomas Swann, John McLean, William H. Fitzhugh, H. L. Opie, Alfred H. Powell, P. C. Pendleton, A. Fenwick, John Lee, Frisby Tilghman, and Robert W. Bowie. The committee to memorialize Congress was as follows: Walter Jones, John Mason, George Washington Park Custis, Robert I. Taylor, S. H. Smith.^[11]

That George Washington's original plan of connecting the Potomac with the Great Lakes was still dominant, a resolution of this convention proves; the Virginians and Marylanders were bound to control the commerce of the Lakes even with the Erie Canal as a rival. Their resolution read:

"And be it further resolved, That a committee of five delegates be appointed to prepare, and cause to be presented, in behalf of this convention, a suitable memorial to the state of Ohio, soliciting the co-operation of that state in the completion of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, and its ultimate connexion with the navigation of Lake Erie; and that, for the latter purpose, the memorial shall respectfully suggest the expediency of causing the country, between the northernmost bend of the river Ohio, and the southern shore of Lake Erie, together with the waters of Great Beaver and Cayuga [Cuyahoga] creeks, and all other intervening waters near the said route, to be carefully surveyed, with the view of ascertaining the practicability and probable cost of a canal, which, fed by the latter, shall connect the former."^[12] Mr. Schriver, in his volume quoted, gives much attention to this western extension of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. "The proposed Ohio and Lake Erie Canal," he affirms, "is intimately blended with that of the Chesapeake and Ohio. In the opinion of many, it is embraced and constitutes only a part of the same grand design; but whether it be considered in connexion with it, or independently, it is confessedly a project of vast public importance, involving considerations of great national and local concern."

The Washington canal convention brought forth much fruit; its demands were eminently reasonable; the plan of operations proposed was logical, and fair to all concerned. The Potomac Canal Company could not face the future successfully without the friendship of Maryland and Maryland's commercial metropolis. The legislature of Virginia passed an act incorporating the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, January 27, 1824.^[13] Upon being slightly amended, it was passed by the Maryland legislature January 31, 1825. A perusal of the act will show that the new company was capitalized at $6,000,000, divided into 60,000 shares of $100 each. Certificates of stock in the old Potomac Company, or debts of the same, were to be accepted at par or nominal value for certificates in the new company, under certain conditions and limitations. The canal was divided into Eastern and Western sections, the mouth of the Savage River being the division point;^[14] if the company did not begin work in two years, or if one hundred miles were not completed in full in five years, the charter should become null and void. If the western section was not begun within two years after the time allowed for the completion of the eastern section, or was not completed in six years, the right and title of the company "in said western section, shall cease and determine." It will be noted that failure to complete the western section did not affect the company's right to the eastern section. The annual dividends were not to exceed fifteen per cent, and unless one-fourth of the capital should be subscribed all subscriptions were to be void.

In December 1823 President Monroe presented the internal improvement proposed by the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company to Congress, and in April 1824 an appropriation of $30,000 was made to procure surveys and estimates in order to prove the feasibility of the plan. In May the President appointed Brigadier-general Simon Bernard and Lieutenant-colonel Totten and Civil Engineer John L. Sullivan of Massachusetts as a board to outline the most suitable route for a canal from Potomac tide-water to the Ohio River. Their report was made October 23, 1826.^[15] The four memoirs of the report include a survey of the Potomac Valley from tide-water to Cumberland, Maryland, by Lieutenant-colonel J. J. Abert; a descriptive statement with reference to the eastern section of the summit level between the Potomac and the heads of the Ohio by Captain William G. McNeill; a descriptive account of Casselman's River or the Somerset route, also by Captain McNeill; a review of other routes by James Schriver.

In the eastern section the canal was planned on the Maryland side of the Potomac River, because the obstacles on that bank were of less magnitude than those on the opposite Virginia shore, the exposure was more favorable, an earlier navigation could be secured there in the spring, and a later navigation in the fall, and no aqueduct would be required at Cumberland, as Wills Creek enters the Potomac at that point from the Maryland shore. Moreover the water supply from Maryland to the Potomac exceeded that of Virginia, the rivers of the latter sending 190 cubic feet of water per second into the Potomac, and the former 267.35 cubic feet. While perhaps not fully accurate, these figures approximated the truth.

The length of the eastern section was placed at one hundred and eighty-six miles, and it was divided into eleven subdivisions marked by the following points beginning at Cumberland: South Branch of the Potomac, Great Cacapan, Licking Creek, Great Conococheague, Antietam Creek, one mile below Harper's Ferry, Monocacy River, Seneca Creek, Great Falls, Little Falls, and Georgetown. The old canal of the Potomac Company was to be used by the new canal as far as possible. A summary of the eastern section reads:

Distance (miles) .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		185⅝
Descent (feet) .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		578⅝
Number of locks .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		74⅝
Estimated cost$8,177,081.05 .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

In seeking a route across the towering ridges between the Potomac and heads of the Ohio, the course first suggested by Washington and studied by commissioners since his day was discarded by the board of surveyors which now planned the actual course of the canal. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company being incorporated in Pennsylvania, it was now no object to keep the highway within the territories of Virginia and Maryland alone. Upon exploration, it was found that a route up Wills Creek from the Potomac at Cumberland, Maryland, and across to Casselman's River, a branch of the Youghiogheny, was a more favorable route than that by way of Savage River and Deep Creek to the Youghiogheny. The question was determined by the supply of water at summit level. The reservoirs in the Deep Creek plan would have to be twelve miles in

Map of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal

[The heavy line from Georgetown to Cumberland marks the portion of the canal that was built; ⟨the⟩ faint line from Cumberland to Pittsburg indicates the portion that was surveyed but not built]

length, while those by the more northerly route would be but three and one-half miles in length. A saving of six million cubic yards of water by evaporation in the Casselman's route made that way far more advantageous. The lockage on the Deep Creek route was eight hundred and seventy-three feet more than by the Casselman route; on the other hand this was equalized by the fact that the tunnel on the latter route was to be four miles and eighty yards long, while the Dewickman tunnel on the Deep Creek route was only one mile and five hundred and sixty-eight yards long. With all factors taken into account, it was estimated that the Deep Creek route would cost $2,861,288.90, and the Casselman's or Flaugherty Creek route $2,324,315.37, or more than a half million dollars less than the Deep Creek route.

This Middle Section, therefore, extended from Cumberland, or the western extremity of the Eastern Section, to the mouth of Casselman's River in the Youghiogheny, the "Turkey Foot" of pioneer days.^[16] Its length was seventy miles and one thousand and ten yards. The lockage was nineteen hundred and sixty-one feet and the summit was to be crossed by a tunnel four miles and eighty yards long, dug at eight hundred and fifty-six feet below the summit of the ridge. The Middle Section was divided into an eastern and a western portion. The former had two subdivisions; the first, descending from the summit, was fifteen miles in length, with a descent of one thousand and sixteen feet, from the eastern end of the summit level to the mouth of Little Wills Creek; the second subdivision, nearly fourteen miles long, and with a descent three hundred and nine feet, extended from Little Wills Creek to the western end of the Eastern Section, below Cumberland. The western portion of the Middle Section was, likewise, divided into two subdivisions; the first, sixteen miles long with a drop of two hundred and sixteen feet, ran from the western end of the summit level to the mouth of Middle Fork Creek; the second, nineteen miles long, with a descent of four hundred and twenty feet, ran from there to the mouth of Casselman's. The summit level was five miles and one thousand two hundred and eighty yards long, to be crossed by a tunnel four miles and eighty yards long and a deep cut the remaining distance.

The summary of the Middle Section reads:

	Distance		Ascent and descent	Number of locks	Estimated cost
	miles	yds.
Eastern Portion	29	240	1325	166	$3,856,623.60
Summit Level	5	1280			3,471,967.01
Western Portion	35	1250	636	80	2,699,532.25
	70	1010	1961	246	10,028,122.86

The Western Section began four hundred and forty yards below the junction of Casselman's River with the Youghiogheny and extended to Pittsburg on the Ohio River. The canal was planned on the right bank of the Youghiogheny and Monongahela Rivers, and was divided into four subdivisions:

Termini	Miles	Descent (feet)
Western end of Middle Section to Connellsville	27½	432nt
Connellsville to Sewickly Creek	27¼	144nt
Sewickly Creek to mouth of Youghiogheny	16½	8nt
Mouth of Youghiogheny to Pittsburg	14½	35nt

The summary for the Western Section was:

Distance (miles) .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		85¼
Descent (feet) .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		619¼
Number of locks .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		78¼
Estimated cost$4,170,223.78 .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

The total estimate of the board, therefore, for the entire work was as follows:

	Distance		Ascent and descent	Number of locks	Estimated cost
	miles.	yds.
Eastern Section	185	1078	578	74	$8,177,081.05
Middle Section	70	1010	1961	246	10,028.122.86
Western Section	85	348	619	78	4,170,223.78
Totals	341	676	3158	398	$22,375,427.69	[17]

Under the head of "General Considerations"^[18] the board treated minutely the proposition presented by the acts incorporating the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, and the treatise is one of the most interesting studies of early commerce between the East and the West. The great population and area concerned on both sides of the Alleghenies, the increased value of real estate which would follow the building of the canal, the articles of import and export which would pass and repass over the great highway, the probable revenue which would be derived from tolls, the enhanced value, commercially, of a canal to the Ohio River whenever the Ohio was in turn connected with Lake Erie, and the strategic military position and value of the canal on the shortest route from Atlantic tide-water to the Ohio River and the Great Lakes by way of the national capital, are points considered at some length.

This report of the board, naming over twenty millions as the cost of the canal was an overwhelming and disappointing surprise. The capital of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company was, as we have seen, only six million—in itself a tremendous sum in that day. The blow fell heavily on Baltimore; while the building of the canal in the Potomac Valley was entirely reasonable, it was the larger interests of the great scheme that had a special appeal to the capitalists of the Maryland metropolis. As a highway between tide-water and the Ohio Basin the scheme had been greatly favored by them. Already, on March 6, 1825, the Maryland legislature had provided for the formation of what was known as the "Maryland Canal Company" with a capital of half a million dollars, which should bind the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal with the city of Baltimore. In any lesser sense—as merely a canal in the Potomac Valley—the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was of far less interest to Baltimoreans than an improvement of communications, for instance, to the rich Susquehanna country. And the moment it was known that merely the Middle Section, of seventy miles, of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was to cost nearly twice the entire proposed capitalization of the company, the idea of a continental canal to the West through the Alleghenies was deemed impracticable at Baltimore. A new estimate of the expense was undertaken by James Geddes and Nathan S. Roberts, who cut down the figures named by General Bernard one half.^[19] Those greatly interested in the advancement of the scheme hailed this announcement with delight, but the more conservative relied upon the estimates of the national board as being the most reliable.

The actual resulting effects of the discouraging report of the board concerning the cost of this enterprise were so far-reaching, that it is altogether proper to pause a moment here and consider the position and influence of the city of Baltimore, and note what the failure of the canal scheme meant to her. As a commercial metropolis Baltimore's reputation was very great, and second only to that of Philadelphia. Not only was it a great seaboard market, but throughout the preceding half century it had been one of the great markets for western produce. Its position was unique; although a seaport it was many miles nearer the Ohio Valley than any rival. In laying out possible landward routes from the Ohio River to the seaboard for the Cumberland National Road, the commissioners found that the route to Baltimore was thirty-nine miles shorter than to Philadelphia, and forty-two miles shorter than to Richmond. The distance from the seaport of Baltimore to Brownsville, Pennsylvania, on the Monongahela, where navigation by boat was almost always possible, was only two hundred and eighteen miles. Thus Baltimore was the natural eastern metropolis for the trade of the West. Moreover, Baltimore had, up to date, taken perhaps all advantages of her situation, and had grown rich in consequence; the building of the Cumberland Road had been of great benefit, for Cumberland was but the half-way house to Baltimore. Baltimore and Maryland had improved their opportunities by building many miles of fine roads, really extending the Cumberland Road to Baltimore and tide-water.

Baltimore's commercial prestige was secure so far as land ways were concerned. New measures calling for water ways now on foot, made popular by the great success of the Erie Canal, promised to overturn all previous considerations. The coach and freighter, it seemed, were now to be replaced by the easy-gliding canal-boat. Baltimore had been the metropolis for western trade during the reign of the freighter. Must she resign her place upon the advent of the canal-boat? This was the question which was being agitated throughout the years of the Potomac chimera; the failure of that scheme again restored the confidence of the Baltimoreans. But the revival of the plan under the new arrangement of a canal from tide-water to the Ohio Basin again created alarm. The position of the Marylanders in this extremity is well indicated by one of Niles's editorials as follows: "The 'National Intelligencer' of Tuesday last [November, 1823], in an article signed 'Multum in Parvo,' contains a very illiberal attack on the people of Baltimore, because of their supposed opposition to the Potomac canal. It accuses us of 'avarice and ambition'—of being 'selfish'—as 'jealous' of Washington, and as preparing to oppose a restoration of their 'political rights' to the people of the District of Columbia! It also puts it down as impossible to conduct an arm of this canal to our city. . . Baltimore 'avaricious and ambitious!' We refer to the support afforded by loans, and the great disbursements made on our own responsibility, during the late war; the splendid public roads with which we have intersected the country, and the beautiful edifices, fountains, &c. that we have built in our city, in proof of our 'avarice'—and direct public attention to North Point and Fort McHenry, for evidences of our 'ambition:' and, as to being 'selfish' or 'jealous,' these are nearly the last things that should be said about Baltimore; . . So far as my information goes, . . the citizens of Baltimore are not opposed to the Potomac canal: but how is it possible to expect their support for it when the following facts are considered:

"1. We have expended a million of dollars on certain public roads, to obtain that trade which the canal is designed to deprive us of.

"2. Yet, and notwithstanding we are to suffer this loss of capital and trade, if the canal should be made as heretofore proposed, we must pay one third of Maryland's share of the expense of making it: that is to say, 10,000 dollars a year will be added to the amount of our taxes, though such is our present condition that the usual taxes can hardly be collected, through the depreciation of property and want of business.

"3. . . As well might we accuse the people of the District of Columbia of selfishness, because they will not help us to make a canal to the Susquehannah, as they can censure us for preferring that canal to one on the Potomac. We are willing that the Potomac canal should be made—but not at our cost; until, at least, we have fully ascertained what can be done in respect to a favorite measure of the same nature. But we must be permitted to doubt whether the people of the district would feel very zealous about the navigation of the Potomac, provided it was ascertained as practicable, and conditioned, that an arm of the canal should be extended to Baltimore, though the last is so much nearer the sea than Washington, &c."^[20]

As noted, Maryland refused to pass the bill incorporating the Potomac Canal Company, because of the objections, largely, of Baltimoreans. To the enlarged plan embraced under the name of Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, assent was given, under the impression that full connection with the West by canal was possible, and that Baltimore was to become, virtually, the eastern terminus. The report of the national board as to the enormous expense of the canal precluded the thought of the building of the Middle and Western Sections, and, consequently, deprived it of its genuinely national character. The discouragements discovered by the Maryland Canal Company in their attempt to find a satisfactory location for a canal route from the Potomac to Baltimore,^[21] also had its effect in strengthening the opinion of Baltimore capitalists that Baltimore could never hold the trade of the West by water routes as for half a century she had held it by land routes. New York and Philadelphia were fast surpassing her, and, by means of the Pennsylvania and Erie Canals, seemed in a fair way to secure the trade of the West which once had been hers. In the editorial already quoted the discouraging state of trade in Baltimore is hinted at.

Philip E. Thomas, president of the Mechanic's Bank of Baltimore and a commissioner for Maryland for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, resigned his office upon reviewing the report of General Barnard, and, calling into his counsels George Brown, the two in private faced the situation in which Baltimore was placed. Without hope of taking any advantage of the Potomac to gain the trade with the West, with New York and Pennsylvania fast outstripping Baltimore in trade and population and both pushing canals to the West, the outlook for Baltimore seemed unpromising indeed. These two energetic and daring men, in comparatively a moment's time, changed the whole complexion of affairs, and brought not only the eyes of the world to Baltimore but in very fact brought back to her the commercial prestige, so far as western trade was concerned, which she had enjoyed in the day of the stagecoach and freighter. On the twelfth of February, 1827, the plans of Thomas and Brown had gone so far that a meeting at the home of Mr. Thomas of over a score of Baltimore merchants and promoters was called "to take into consideration the best means of restoring to the City of Baltimore that portion of the Western Trade which has lately been diverted from it by the introduction of steam navigation and other causes."

The plan of Thomas and Brown comprehended the building of a railway from Baltimore to the Ohio. Both men had brothers in England who had forwarded reports of railway experiments there. The matter had received considerable previous attention and the great proposition was discussed with an intense interest. From all the data which were gathered by the correspondents abroad, the proposition was wholly reasonable. And in its realization the promoters would find a relish intensified a hundred-fold, because of the rumors circulated that Baltimore must resign her commercial position to Alexandria or Georgetown because of the building and influence of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The two railways then in operation in the United States were at Quincy, Massachusetts, a road to a quarry; and at Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, from the Lehigh River to the Summit Coal Mine, nine miles distant. As means of conveying heavy freight rapidly the success of the "rail road" was assured. The idea of conveying passengers was an afterthought; it was the freight traffic that Baltimore had lost—it was the freight traffic which the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal would draw from even the best roads Baltimore could build or have built. By means of rails, cars with freight could be moved, it was estimated, at least twelve miles an hour, and railroads could be built anywhere macadamized roads could go. The supply of water at the summit level was not a critical factor.

The result of this meeting at the home of Mr. Thomas was the appointment of a committee which was ordered to review the whole proposition, and report a plan of action. On February 19, the committee report was ready, and the second meeting was held. The report affirmed that rail roads promised to "supercede Canals as effectually as Canals have superceded Turnpike Roads," and recommended that "a double Rail Road" be constructed "between the City of Baltimore and some suitable point upon the Ohio River, by the most eligible and direct route, and that a Charter to incorporate a Company to execute this work be obtained as early as practicable."^[22] On February 28, 1827, a charter was granted by the Maryland legislature; it was confirmed by Virginia on March 8, and by Pennsylvania February 22, 1828. Mr. Thomas resigned the presidency of the Mechanic's Bank to give his whole attention to the affairs of the enterprise.

A unique situation now presents itself to the historical inquirer. On the one hand we find the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, under the presidency of Charles F. Mercer of Virginia, chairman of the Committee of Roads and Canals of the National House of Representatives, backed by a capital of over three and one-half million dollars, ready to proceed in building a canal through the Potomac Valley from Washington to Cumberland; on the other hand is the new rail road company called the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, with Mr. Thomas at its head, backed, in 1828, by four millions of dollars, beginning to build a rail road from Baltimore to the Potomac Valley, up the valley to Cumberland, and across the mountains to the Ohio River. It was evident at the start that the rivalry would be tremendously bitter; that the two companies would give rise to factions which would harm and decry each other in every way possible. The canal idea was, comparatively, very new, and the Erie Canal being successfully prosecuted from the Hudson to the Lakes had created immense enthusiasm. On the other hand the rail road was almost an untried novelty; on such roads as were in operation in England and America horse power was the only power to be relied upon; sails were in use but were not successful under many circumstances. The steam engine had not been successfully adapted as yet; the roadbeds were far more costly than even the most expensive macadamized roads; there was still a question whether the mountains could be spanned by this method of transportation, and whether, even if the locomotive could be utilized on a straight track, it could ever be useful on a curved track! The bitterness of the rivalry was intensified by the fact that the two companies were organized within the same states, to operate in exactly the same territory and both seeking the same carrying trade. And, lastly, one company had its origin in a detrimental report from the highest authority made concerning the other. The seed of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway lay in General Bernard's report of 1826, in which the cost of building the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal across the mountains was estimated at a prohibitive figure.

Both companies went to work eagerly, and both sure of success. The infancy of the rail road science, and the fact that as yet nothing had been done in all the world on such a scale as was proposed by the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road, naturally rendered public opinion more or less skeptical; while as for the canal, success was practically assured⟨.⟩ It would be taking a very narrow outlook upon the situation to describe the building of the canal, without presenting a briefly sketched-in history of its great rival for western trade. The two must go hand in hand.

Early in 1828, both companies were in the field surveying the route of their two highways. At the point of conflict, where the railway approached the Potomac River, it was easily seen that trouble would be precipitated. In fact, as early as June 10, the canal company got from Judge Buchanan an injunction against the railway company, to prevent them from encroaching upon lands needed by the former and granted them by charter rights.^[23] The railway company returned the compliment by obtaining an injunction from the "chancellor of the state of Maryland" likewise restraining the canal company.^[24] " . . If we understand it [the situation]," wrote the perplexed editor of the Register, June 28, "the state of things is as it was, before the injunction obtained of Judge Buchanan."^[25] The canal promoters' view of the affair was thus voiced by the editor of the National Journal: "It appears to us to be very essential to the harmonious prosecution of these two great works, that the rights of each company should be precisely defined. It was with this view, we believe, that the injunction [of June 10] in the present stage was applied for; in order that the question how far the charter granted to the canal company, giving to them the privileges of condemning such land as may be necessary for the construction of that work, barred any other company from obtaining land along the same line, until the objects of the canal company should be accomplished. By the final settlement of this question, in the beginning, all ground for future collision would be removed. We should regret, therefore, if our Baltimore neighbors should regard as an act of hostility to them, that which is, in fact, simply an assertion of our own rights. There is no disposition to embarrass their work, to which we desire all success; there is no wish to delay it, as is evident from the offer which is said to have been made . . to refer the question to . . the court of appeals now sitting at Annapolis."^[26]

Plans were already making by the rival companies for grand celebrations on the Fourth of July succeeding, when, near Washington, the ground should be broken for the canal, and, at Baltimore, the "Foundation of the Rail Road," in the shape of the corner-stone, should be laid. These rival celebrations attracted great crowds to the two cities on the day named. At Washington the streets were alive with people at an early hour, and at seven o'clock the directors of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company met the honored guests of the day at Tilley's Hotel. These included the President of the United States and cabinet, and the various ambassadors of foreign countries then in the city, and other dignitaries, including survivors of the Revolutionary War. The procession, attended by troops and regaled with the music of bands, marched to the Potomac and embarked on the steamboat "Surprize," for a journey to the Great Falls of the Potomac. Crowds followed on either bank of the river. "The sun shone now and then from the clear blue heavens through the fleecy clouds," wrote the inspired reporter of the National Intelligencer; all nature "seemed to smile upon the scene." Disembarking, the company marched to canal-boats lying in the old canal built by the indefatigable labors of Washington's Potomac Company nearly fifty years before. During the journey up the canal, we are assured, the "senses of the company were regaled by a scene at once novel and really enchanting. . . There was a part of this passage, when the music of Moore's sweet song of 'The meeting of the waters,' poured its melody on the ear so as to suspend the labor of the boatmen, and charm to silence every voice." Two companies of riflemen saluted the arrival of President Adams on the ground. "Thousands hung upon the overlooking hill to the north, and many climbed the umbrageous trees." Within a hollow square, surrounded by the crowds, a spot was marked for the raising of the first spadeful of earth by John Quincy Adams. Then "amidst a silence so intense as to chasten the animation of hope and to hallow the enthusiasm of joy," the mayor of Georgetown handed Mr. Mercer, president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, the implement with which the ground should be broken.

"There are moments," said Mr. Mercer, "in the progress of time, which are the counters of whole ages. There are events, the monuments of which, surviving every other memorial of human existence, eternize the nation to whose history they belong, after all other vestiges of its glory have disappeared from the globe. At such a moment have we now arrived. Such a monument we are now to found." At this point Mr. Mercer handed the spade to President Adams who, in turn, delivered the address of the day. In the course of his oration the speaker said: "To subdue the earth is pre-eminently the purpose of the undertaking, to the accomplishment of which the first stroke of the spade is now to be struck. That it is to be struck by this hand, I invite you to witness." At this point the President attempted to sink the spade into the ground; but it struck a root. "Not deterred by trifling obstacles," wrote an eye-witness, "from doing what he had deliberately resolved to perform, Mr. Adams tried it again, with no better success. Thus foiled, he threw down the spade, hastily stripped off and laid aside his coat, and went seriously to work. . . The multitude . . raised a loud and unanimous cheering, which continued for sometime after Mr. Adams had mastered the difficulty."^[27]

Simultaneously with this memorable celebration, an imposing ceremony was being enacted at Baltimore. "Fortunately," we read in the Baltimore American, "the morning of the fourth rose not only bright but cool, to the great comfort of the immense throng of spectators that, from a very early hour, filled every window in Baltimore street, and the pavement below, from beyond Bond street on the east, far west on Baltimore street extended, a distance of about two miles." It was estimated that seventy thousand people were in attendance. During the early morning the crowds streamed toward the spot about two miles from the city, just south of the Frederick turnpike, where on a rise of ground in the open field a pavilion was raised for the reception of the honored guests of the occasion. The distance of the scene of laying the corner-stone of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road from Baltimore made the processional display more imposing, led by the First Baltimore Hussars.

The venerable guest of the day was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. After the invocation and the reading of the Declaration of Independence, John B. Morris, a director of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road, addressed the assembled throng. His words were singularly prophetic. "We are about opening the channel," he said, "through which the commerce of the mighty country beyond the Alleghany [Mountains] must seek the ocean—we are about affording facilities of intercourse between the east and west, which will bind the one more closely to the other, beyond the power of an increased population or sectional differences to disunite. We are in fact commencing a new era in our history; . . It is but a few years since the introduction of steam boats effected powerful changes, and made those neighbors, who were before far distant from each other. Of a similar and equally important effect will be the Baltimore and Ohio rail road. While the one will have stemmed the torrent of the Mississippi, the other will have surmounted and reduced the heights of the Alleghany. . . It is not in mortals to command success, but if a determination to yield to no obstacle which human exertion can overcome . . can ensure success—success shall be ours."

Then, descending from his seat in the pavilion, Charles Carroll lifted a spadeful of earth from the designated resting place of the foundation stone, which was then set in position. Within the stone was placed a copy of the charter of the company, the newspapers of the day, and a scroll containing these words:

"This stone is deposited in commemoration of the commencement of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, a work of deep and vital interest to the American people. Its accomplishment will confer the most important benefits upon this nation, by facilitating its commerce, diffusing and extending its social intercourse, and perpetuating the happy union of these confederated states. The first general meeting of the citizens of Baltimore to confer upon the adoption of proper measures for undertaking this magnificent work, was on the 2d day of February, 1827. An act of incorporation, by the state of Maryland, was granted February 28th, 1827, and was confirmed by the state of Virginia March 8th, 1827. Stock was subscribed, to provide funds for its execution, April 1st, 1827. The first board of directors was elected April 23, 1827. The company was organized, 24th April, 1827. An examination of the country was commenced under the direction of lieutenant colonel Stephen H. Long and captain William G. McNeill, United States' topographical engineers, and William Howard, United States' civil engineer, assisted by lieutenants Barney, Trimble and Dillahunty of the U. S. artillery, and Mr. Harrison, July 2d. 1827. The actual surveys to determine the route, were begun by the same officers, with the additional assistance of lieutenants Cook, Gwynn, Hazzard, Fessenden, and Thompson and Mr. Guion, November 20th, 1827. The charter of the company was confirmed by the state of Pennsylvania, February 22d, 1828. The state of Maryland became a stockholder in the company, by subscribing for half a million of dollars of its stock March 6th, 1828. And the construction of the road was commenced July 4th, 1828, under the management of the following named board of directors: Philip Evan Thomas, president, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, William Patterson, Robert Oliver, Alexander Brown, Isaac M'Kim, William Lorman, George Hoffman, John B. Morris, Talbot Jones, William Steuwart, Solomon Etting, Patrick Macauley, George Brown, treasurer. The engineers and assistant engineers in the service of the company are, Philip Evan Thomas, president, Lieutenant-colonel Stephen Harryman Long, Jonathan Knight, Board of Engineers. Captain William Gibbs McNeill, U. S. topographical engineer. Lieutenants William Cook, Joshua Barney, Walter Gwynn, Isaac Trimble, Richard Edward Hazzard, John N. Dillahunty of the U. S. artillery. Casper Willis Weaver, superintendent of construction."^[28]

Both companies now went quickly to work on their undertakings; in the same issue of the Register (July 19, 1828), and side by side on the same page are these notices:

"The engineers of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company have, by public notice, invited proposals for the construction of twelve miles of the road, commencing at the city [Baltimore] line, and extending westwardly."^[29]

"The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company have issued proposals for the excavation, embankment and walling, of the 11½ miles of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, in half mile sections, extending from the head of the Little Falls to the head of the Great Falls of the Potomac river."

In August, thirty-four sections of the canal from Little Falls to Seneca (seventeen miles) were placed under contract and, on September 1, work was actually begun.^[30] "At this time the capital stock subscribed and payable in current funds, exclusive of subscriptions in the stocks and debts of the Potomac [Canal] Company, amounted to 36,094 shares, or $3,609,400 as follows:

		SharesEquivalent to
United States .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		10,000$1,000,000
Washington City .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		10,000$1,000,000
Maryland .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		5,000$1,500,000
Alexandria .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		2,500$1,250,000
Georgetown .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		2,500$1,250,000
Shephardstown .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		20$1,002,000
Individuals .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		6,074$1,607,400
		aaaaaaaa— — —$aaaaaaaaaaaa— — —
		36,094$3,609,400"[31]

Though the rail road was far more of an experiment than the canal, its stock had been taken up quickly. "The subscription books of the company," reads a note in the Register of April 7, 1827, "were closed on Saturday the 31st ult. on which day alone were taken thirteen thousand three hundred and eighty-seven shares, making, with those previously taken, forty-one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight shares, inclusive of the five thousand allotted to and taken by the corporation of Baltimore. The amount of money, therefore, subscribed by this city [Baltimore] alone, is four millions one hundred and seventy-eight thousand dollars, divided amongst twenty-two thousand names. . . Each name will be entitled but to 7-10ths of a share . . which will be further reduced by the subscriptions in Frederick and Hagerstown, which are not yet ascertained, but are supposed to amount to two thousand shares. It is believed that of this subscription, which outruns so largely the fund contemplated to be raised, but a comparatively small part has been made with a view to speculation. There is, therefore, every reason to think, that the stock is principally in the hands of persons who intend and are able to hold it."^[32]

The question of stock subscription brings up one of the points of conflict between the canal and the road—a government subscription to the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road. We have seen that the government had subscribed for ten thousand shares, or one million dollars, in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company stocks. Accordingly, the Board of Directors, headed by Charles Carroll, signed a memorial, January, 1828, to the United States Congress asking for a national subscription. "The Senate committee to which the memorial was referred reported a bill authorizing a subscription of $1,000,000. The committee of the House of Representatives also made a favorable report, but it being late in the session when the committee reported, it would submit no bill. The company therefore renewed its petition at the next session of Congress in 1829, but, although the committees of both houses of Congress recommended a qualified subscription to the company, the measure failed. It was said at the time^[33] that the reason the company was unsuccessful in this application was because of the opposition of the president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, who was at this time chairman of the committee on roads and canals in the House of Representatives.^[34]

The rail road company was not in great need of a national subscription, though dark days were at hand. A perusal of the reports of President Thomas, the first of which was made October 1, 1827,^[35] will cause the reader to marvel "that the formidable obstacles almost daily encountered . . did not crush the energies of the Company, and induce them to abandon the work. . ." An unforeseen difficulty in the shape of an immense cut near Baltimore called for an expenditure of nearly a quarter of a million. And it soon developed that the Canal Company, which had deprived the rail road of the government's aid was yet to strike a harder blow.

By its charter the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company had secured a right of way for a canal on the Maryland bank of the Potomac from Washington to Cumberland. By its surveys the rail road was compelled to gain the Potomac at the "Point of Rocks," twelve miles below Harper's Ferry, and follow the river to that point. Otherwise a tunnel would have to be built under the mountain spurs—a financially impossible alternative. The point at issue in the great quarrel, which became exceedingly bitter and was at last settled only by Federal interference, was, therefore, very plain. This famous dispute for right of way through these strategic twelve miles was not settled until 1832, both companies suffering in consequence of the delay, and the railway losing its argument but effecting a compromise. In this year the Court of Appeals reversed the decision of the Chancery Court of Maryland and sustained the Canal Company's contention for the right of way between the Point of Rocks and Harper's Ferry. After a series of compromise proposals by the rail road to the canal had been refused, the Maryland legislature took up the matter, both works being important to that commonwealth. On May 9, 1833 a compromise was effected by the passage of a law calling for the joint construction of canal and rail road through the disputed territory; to Messrs. Charles F. Mayer and Bene S. Pigman great credit was due in handling successfully this problem, which had at its root the bitter rivalry of many years standing. The com

The Cactocin Aqueduct

[By this aqueduct the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal crosses Cactocin Creek, ten miles from Harper's Ferry. It was over the right of way here at the "Point of Rocks" that the bitter quarrel between the canal and the Baltimore and Ohio Railway was precipitated. The piers of the railway bridge over the same stream may be seen through the first arch of the aqueduct]

promise cost the rail road heavily. It was to subscribe for 2,500 shares of Canal Company stock ($266,000) and the canal company built the road through the territory in dispute (the Point of Rocks). The Rail Road Company completed the road to the Maryland shore of the Potomac opposite Harper's Ferry in 1834, it being opened December 1. Here, however, it was to pause, for the compromise signed by the two companies demanded that the rail road should not be built up the Potomac until the canal should have been completed to Cumberland—if that was done within the time named in the charter (1840).

Though at all times master of the situation, the Canal Company found its task tremendously heavy; the weather, varying prices of labor and necessaries, combined with great physical obstacles, rendered the undertaking one in which patience was as necessary as capital. Both were many times exhausted. We have seen that contracts were first let in 1828. By the president's report to the legislature in January, 1831, we find that forty-eight miles were under contract and that twenty-one miles were in use during the fall of 1830 and winter of 1830–31.^[36] In February, 1833 the state of Virginia authorized a subscription of Chesapeake and Ohio Canal stock to the amount of $250,000, subject only to reasonable conditions.^[37] In March, 1834, Maryland authorized an additional subscription of $125,000, and promised a larger subscription in case the National Government voted the investment of an additional million in the canal. Neither the government or any state, save only Maryland, befriended the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, however, from this date forward.^[38] At this time (June, 1834) the canal had cost $4,062,991.25. Seventy-eight miles remained to be built and the Company's funds were unequal to the task. The friends of the great work met in convention at Baltimore in the December following, and a committee was appointed to report on probable expense of completion of the canal, and committees to memorialize Congress and the legislatures of states interested in the work. The former committee brought in a report, which consisted of nothing more reliable than an expression of opinion based on former experiences, which gave the public to understand that the canal could be completed in two years with two million dollars.^[39] The other states turning a deaf ear to the plea, Maryland came to the rescue, March 7, 1835, and appropriated the entire two millions needed.^[40] It was granted in the form of a loan, the state reserving the power to convert it into capital stock at any future time if it was deemed expedient.

The company now took the steps which should have preceded the circulation of any opinion by friends of the canal as to the expense of completing it—a survey and estimate was made. This being done, it was found that the cost of completing the canal exceeded three and one-half millions. The consternation aroused by this report can be imagined. Many felt that Maryland had been deceived and imposed upon. But the friends of internal improvements arose to the occasion. Meetings were held up and down the state. The canal and rail road people united hands which formerly had been clinched in threatening attitude, and on June 3, 1835, the Maryland Legislature passed the famous "Eight Million Dollar Bill."^[41] Its items were as follows:

To the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		$3,000,000
To the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		3,000,000
To the Eastern Shore Rail Road Company .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		1,000,000
To the Maryland Canal Company .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		500,000
To the Annapolis Canal Company .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		500,000
		$8,000,000

As it stood the bill was a great victory for the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road interests, as one of its most important provisions demanded that the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company permit its rival to ascend the Potomac Valley.^[42] Baltimore went wild over the passage of the act. A public dinner, fireworks, the ringing of bells, and a salute of a hundred guns gave evidence of the feeling at the Maryland metropolis. "The citizens of Baltimore had, indeed, 'evident cause' to rejoice at the triumph which had been achieved. All the important provisions of the bill, looked to the interests and had been framed with a view to the aggrandizement of the city. Its great leading object was, to secure the completion of the rail road to the Ohio river, and the completion of the canal to Cumberland, and its connexion with Baltimore by the route that might be found most conducive to the prosperity of that city. The enthusiasm of the occasion was, therefore, all embracing, on the part of the citizens of Baltimore. In the public demonstrations that were ordered, no discrimination was indicated, in regard to any particular work. No thought of jealous rivalry—no dream of future disappointment, or difficulty, was allowed to mingle in their exaltation at the auspicious event. But the act was not welcomed, by the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, with the same satisfaction and pleasure. Indeed, by many of the stockholders, it was looked upon coldly, and, by some, positively objected to. Serious doubts were entertained, for a time, whether it would be accepted by the company." On July 28, 1836, however, the stockholders assented and agreed to the provisions of the Eight Billion Dollar Act.^[43]

The directors of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road gave their assent to the law of 1835 on July 25, 1836. In addition to granting them the right to build their road up the Potomac Valley, the law allowed the city of Baltimore to subscribe to the stock, and, accordingly, Baltimore subscribed immediately for three million dollars worth of stock. Therefore within a year the assets of the road were increased by six million dollars.

Brighter days were now dawning for the road. The past six years had been a time of trials, drawbacks, and discouragements. The contest for a right of way to Harper's Ferry had been exasperating and had at last been won only by agreeing to limit the extension of the road to that point. There were other difficulties to be overcome before the new company could claim the genuine confidence of the public. All features of the road, excepting the road-bed alone, were experiments—rails, sleepers (ties), and cars. The road was opened May 22, 1830, and soon the public had passed a favorable verdict on the enterprise. In this day we would call the affair a horsecar railway. The only difference between this and other ordinary roads was the fact that the coach wheels ran on rails, being held in position by means of flanges. The coaches used were almost precisely like those on an ordinary pike, but were mounted on four light cast-iron wheels. Among roads—dirt, macadamized, plank, and corduroy—this road with rails was "the latest." As to its general practicability there was much discussion. What grades could it overcome? Would curves be permitted as the scheme developed? As to its popularity, no question could be raised. Though the company had few cars and the track was a single track and the road but twelve miles long (running from Baltimore to Ellicott's Mills), during the first four months of operation the receipts were $20,012.36, and ten times the freight that could be handled was offered.^[44] An advertisement of the rail road of 1830 is interesting.^[45] "Brigades" (trains) of cars left Baltimore at 6 and 10 A. M. and from 3 to 4 P. M.; brigades left the opposite terminus at "6 and 8½ o'clock, A. M." and "12½ and 6 o'clock P. M." Drivers were not allowed to permit passengers to enter the cars without tickets. A postscript reads: "P. S. Parties desirous to engage a Car for the day can be accommodated after the 5th July."

The question of motive power was the great question of the hour. Horses and mules only had been used on the other two rail roads in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts; in this year (1830) on the Liverpool and Manchester Rail Road steam locomotives were used more successfully than had been the case on other English roads, where their speed had never exceeded the gait of an easy-going road horse—six miles an hour. It was greatly doubted whether such a machine was possible; and if, under good conditions, steam locomotives could haul a "brigade of cars" faster than a horse or mule on straight track, the thing would never get around a curve; and it was never the plan of the builders of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road to avoid curves. Other locomotives than steam were being prepared for trial on the new rail road. Evan Thomas, brother of the president of the road, invented a car which was moved by sails! It was named "Æolus." "I well recollect," recorded Benjamin H. Latrobe, "the little experimental locomotive of Mr. Evan Thomas; it was 'a basket body,' like that of a sleigh, and had a mast, and, if I recollect, 'a square sail, and was mounted upon four wheels of equal size.' It ran equally well in either direction, but of course only in that in which the wind happened to be blowing at the time, although it would go with the wind abaft the beam, but at a speed proportioned to the angle with the plane of the sails. It was but a clever toy, but had its use at the time in showing how little power of propulsion was necessary upon a railway, compared with the best of the roads that had preceded it."^[46] The "Æolus" attracted much attention; Baron Krudener, envoy from the emperor of Russia, made an excursion in the sailing car, managing the sail himself. On his return he declared he had never before travelled so agreeably, and remarked that he 'would send his suite from Washington to enjoy sailing on the Rail Road.' The President of the Company, to whom he had been introduced, caused a model sailing car to be constructed, fitted with Winans' friction wheels, which he presented to him, with the reports that had been published by the Company, to be forwarded to the Emperor. As a result Ross Winans of Baltimore was invited to Russia to take charge of the emperor's plan of binding that empire with railways. His success marked one of the earliest if not the most spectacular instances of the success of American genius abroad."^[47]

A horse-power locomotive was another invention, prior in date to the sailing car. "A horse was placed in a car and made to walk on an endless apron or belt, and to communicate motion to the wheels, as in the horse-power machines of the present day. The machine worked indifferently well; but, on one occasion, when drawing a car filled with editors and other representatives of the press, it ran into a cow, and the passengers, having been tilted out and rolled down an embankment, were naturally enough unanimous in condemning the contrivance. And so the horse-power car, after countless bad jokes had been perpetrated on the cowed editors, passed out of existence, and probably out of mind."^[48]

The fate of the railway hung suspended on the successful solving of the question of motive power.^[49] Peter Cooper's locomotive "Tom Thumb," constructed in 1829, at Baltimore, and sent over the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road to Ellicott's Mills in one hour and twelve minutes, August 28, 1830, settled the momentous question.^[50] In spite of its laughable features the picture representing the "Exciting Trial of Speed between Mr. Peter Cooper's Locomotive 'Tom Thumb,' and one of Stockton & Stokes's Horse-Cars,"^[51] in which the little model locomotive has caught up with and is passing the horse-car, represents nothing less than the dawning of a new epoch in human history. Though improvements were not made with great rapidity, they came as fast as the rail road was able to profit by them. The Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road merited the honorable title that has been given it—the Railway University of America. While its rival, the Canal Company, had a struggle to secure funds to do its work, the railway carried the same burden and with it the heavier burden of doubt as to the future and many physical and mechanical perplexities forever holding back successful realization of its schemes. For illustration, take the question of track: "The granite and iron rail; the wood and iron on stone blocks; the wood and iron on wooden sleepers, supported by broken stone; the same supported by longitudinal ground-sills, worked to a surface on one side to receive the iron, and supported by wooden sleepers; and the wrought iron rails of the English mode; had all been laid down, and as early as the year 1832, formed different portions of the work."^[52] With the advent of the locomotive the light coach wheels were replaced by cast-iron wheels "to the perfection of which Ross Winans, John Elgar, Jonathan Knight, and Phineas Davis all contributed."^[53] In 1832, steel springs were placed upon a new locomotive "York"—built at York, Pennsylvania—and soon springs were placed on all engines and cars. The discovery of the advantage of combined cylindrical and conical car wheels was a great forward step helping to solve the question of turning curves sharply. As early as 1831 the Rail Road Company offered a prize of $4,000 for the best locomotive offered for trial on the road.^[54] The "York" was the only engine of three offered that was capable of any good service. Up to June 1834, this engine, with the "Atlantic" and "Franklin" were the only locomotives on the road. Horse-cars were still in common use. By the fall of 1834, five more locomotives were added and eight more had been ordered.

Having passed through its darkest days of struggle with the Canal Company and with the vexatious problems of internal betterment of rolling stock and motive power, the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road was now in 1836, quite ready to take advantage of the provisions of the new law which made it possible to throw its gleaming rails up the Potomac from Harper's Ferry to Cumberland and on to the coveted Ohio Basin. With the momentous question represented by the locomotive once solved and solved forever, with an open route from tide-water to Cumberland and the West—little wonder that the controllers of the canal had been only lukewarm in their attitude to the Eight Billion Dollar Act! Despite their efforts, the railway was winning its way; with every new invention the West was made nearer the East; the locomotive was solving Washington's old question how the Potomac Valley could hold the West in fee. As Fate would have it—or Fortune—the hard labor and the thousand perplexities of many men from Washington down, who had attempted first to get in commercial touch with the West by means of rivers, then by means of a canal, were being swept aside by one blast of that little locomotive's whistle. How changed now the situation. But a few years back the canal was master of the Potomac Valley; it had allowed the feeble rail road a passage-way through the Point of Rocks only on condition that not one foot of track should be laid above Harper's Ferry until the canal had been completed to Cumberland. Now the canal was to receive sufficient state backing to complete its line to Cumberland, on condition that the rail road be allowed equal rights between Harper's Ferry and Cumberland! The gloomy year of 1837 in the financial world held the rail road back, and it was not until 1839 that the work was actively pushed on. From now on there was no delay; in June, 1842 the road was completed to opposite Hancock, and by the end of the year it was completed to Cumberland—one hundred and seventy-eight miles from Baltimore. Exciting as is the story of the westward movement of this giant, it cannot be treated here. The first division to Piedmont was opened in June 1851, not far from the "blind" trace Washington rode through far back in 1784, in search of a portage road from eastern to western waters. By June, 1852, the road was opened to Fairmont on the Monongahela, and on the following January the first train passed from Fairmont to Wheeling on the Ohio.^[55] On the night of January 12, 1853 the banquet was spread in Wheeling to end the day of celebration. And of the five "regular" toasts none was so typical or welcomed so loudly as that to "Thomas Swann:^[56] Standing upon the banks of the Ohio, and looking back upon the mighty peaks of the Alleghanies, surmounted by his efforts, he can proudly exclaim—'Veni, vidi, vici.'"

At the meeting of the Maryland legislature in December, 1838, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company asked further assistance from the state and submitted an estimate of the work yet to be done to finish the canal to Cumberland. This estimate had been prepared by the chief engineer of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company and reported to the board of president and directors January 22, 1839. Since the estimate of January, 1836, this was the first revised estimate, regarding quantities and including the extent of the whole line from Dam No. 5 to Cumberland, that had been made. Including a dam at the great Cacapon—now known as Dam No. 6—but excluding the dam designated as Dam No. 7, which was then temporarily dispensed with, the estimate submitted ran as follows:

For the 50 miles above the mouth of the Cacapon, now better known as Dam No. 6	$4,440,657.00
For the 27½ miles between Dam No. 5, and that point	1,640,000.00
	$6,080,657.00

Of this work there had been done, on the first of December, 1838: $947,394.27 on the 50 miles; and $1,589,453.44 on the 27½ miles. This left $3,543,809.29 as the work remaining to be done on December 1, 1838, to complete the canal to Cumberland. The work done in December was estimated at about $90,000 which reduced the amount remaining to be executed, on January 1, 1839, to about $3,450,000. The twenty-seven and a half miles between Dam No. 5 and Dam No. 6 were nearly completed at the time the estimate was submitted. In April, 1839, navigation opened to Dam No. 6, which remained the western terminus for a decade.

The $3,560,619 estimate of the seventy-eight miles between Dam No. 5 and Cumberland, made in January 1836, was arrived at by adding together the surveys of two distinct parties of engineers. By comparing the estimate submitted in December 1838 with the foregoing, made in January 1836, which included the same distance, it will be observed that although the work on more than one-third of the distance had been completed, the latter estimate was nearly seventy-one per cent in excess of the former. About fifty-seven per cent of the increase was attributed by the chief engineer to the advance in the cost of labor, which was very high. The pecuniary difficulties of the company, the high prices and great difficulty in procuring provisions along the line of the canal, and the want of proper control over the laborers by the civil authorities of the state, were some of the causes contributing to this excess. The remaining fourteen per cent of the increase was stated to be chargeable, mainly, to an increase of quantities found to be necessary in the progress of construction for the security of the canal. The "revised estimate" of January, 1839, was the last estimate upon which an available appropriation has been made to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company by the state of Maryland.

A committee was appointed, after the presentation of the memorials and the revised estimate, to investigate the affairs and transactions of the company. In their report they expressed their belief in the importance of an early completion of the canal and suggested the expediency of an appeal to the general government. Instead of an appropriation by the state they recommended that a proposition be made to Congress, that the general government should either aid the company, or transfer to the state of Maryland the interest of the United States in its capital stock both as an original stockholder and as assignee of the district cities, on the condition that the state would provide the necessary means to complete the canal to Cumberland. A similar proposition had previously been made under joint resolutions adopted at December session, 1837, but nothing definite had resulted. The legislature, therefore, was not disposed to postpone the advantages that were anticipated to result from the completion of the work by a hopeless recurrence of abortive expedients. They were of the opinion that the state had already gone too far in its investments in the company to stop now—and it could not recede. The unexpended and unencumbered balance on hand was $681,853.59. This was not sufficient to continue the work during the present year. The credit of the state was high and above suspicion. Both applications were granted. An act was passed on April 5, 1839, known as the act of December session, 1838,^[57] releasing the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company from the twenty per cent premium, stipulated in the act of 1835, and authorizing the commissioner of loans to issue to the company five per cent sterling bonds to the amount of $3,200,000 as an equivalent for, and in lieu of, the $2,500,000 of six per cent certificates which had been delivered to the company, and the $500,000 of six per cents which had been retained by the treasurer of Maryland as security for the payment of the premium. This act made a further appropriation^[58] which authorized an additional subscription to the capital stock of the company to the amount of $1,375,000 payable in five per cent sterling bonds.

These acts were promptly accepted by the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company and their provisions carried into effect and complied with. An instrument of guaranty, and mortgages to secure the payment of the three years interest, in compliance with the condition of both acts, were duly executed on May 15, 1839, and delivered to the treasurer of Maryland. The subscription of $1,375,000 authorized by the latter act was the last subscription made to the capital stock of the company. A report of the treasurer, issued June 1, 1839, stated that the means of the company, over and above its liabilities and applicable to the construction of the canal and the payment to the state of the interest on the bonds, amounted to $2,087,139.94. In this statement the whole amount of the sterling bonds was computed at par value. The cost of the remaining work to be done to complete the canal, on the basis of the January 1839 estimate, was, at that time, $2,935,103.

At the following session of the general assembly, December 1839, the company made a formal application to the state for further assistance. The accompanying communication, dated February 10, 1840, affirmed the correctness of the engineer's estimate of January, 1839, and stated that the fifty miles of canal between Dam No. 6 and Cumberland would cost $4,440,350. Of this, $2,030,128 was expended on the first of January 1840, leaving $2,410,222, necessary to complete the work. The resources of the company, on the same day, estimating 318,175 Maryland five per cent sterling bonds at par, were stated to be $1,489,571; the liabilities of the company $1,244,555, leaving, January 1, after paying all debts, a balance of $245,016. Upon this exhibit, presented to the legislature, the additional appropriation was asked for.

At this time the public appeared fully cognizant of the great importance of pressing forward an early completion of the canal. The members of the legislature were also generally inclined to the adoption of adequate measures of relief; but the question which arose now was concerning the manner in which the relief should be given. Two ways were open: the state bonds could be placed in the hands of the commissioner of loans and be sold at par, and the proceeds paid over to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company; or, the bonds could be delivered to the president and directors of the company and sold by them at par, or be exchanged at their nominal value for the evidences of debt of the company. Apparently, there was no substantial difference between these two propositions, but, because of the views and feelings that originated and entered into the controversy, a broad line of distinction was drawn between the two plans. Each had its advocates and the supporters of each were equally immovable—consequently the legislature adjourned without making any appropriation at all. In this emergency the company took into consideration the course most proper to be adopted in regard to continuing the work on the canal. When called upon to present his views in reference to a total suspension of operations and the postponement of the completion of the canal, the chief engineer estimated that the accumulation of interest and other losses would amount to not less than a million dollars. Petitions from the contractors, merchants, and others, residing in the neighborhood of the operations, were received by the company, begging the continuation of the work and an issue of scrip, or promissory notes, which would be a convenience to each community. Accordingly the company decided to allow the work to proceed and to gratify the petitioners by issuing scrip. In 1839, and previous to that time, the issues had generally been secured by a pledge of state bonds or stocks. The present issue, on the other hand, which, during the year 1840, and from January to April 1841, amounted in the aggregate to $555,400, had no pledge to sustain it. It was the company's last issue of scrip.

At the December meeting of the Maryland legislature, 1840, an appropriation for aid was again asked for. The expenditures upon labor performed during the year had amounted to $531,160, and the sum required to finish the canal to Cumberland, according to the estimate of January 1839, was stated to be $1,825,892. In addition to this, estimating the unsold state bonds at eighty per cent, the company would need $700,000, exclusive of the interest due the state, to redeem the scrip and other debts. A committee was appointed by the legislature which made a rigid examination into the affairs and transactions of the company. The disposal of the state bonds and the issues of scrip were severely censured—and the general assembly again adjourned without adopting any measure of relief. Because of the threatening aspect of affairs, and the difficulty of procuring the necessary means for the continuance of the work on the canal, in the year 1839 the company began to cut down operations. In the month of May of that year the amount expended on the work was $96,320. In December, 1839, and January and February, 1840, the expenditure had been reduced to an average of $40,817 per month. The policy was also adopted of paying off the old loans, which had been secured by a pledge of the six per cent certificates without restriction as to sales, by an immediate sale of the five per cent sterling bonds. At a meeting of the stockholders of the company, on April 3, 1841, an adjourned session of a general meeting, the proceedings state that the president announced "if a breach should take place in the canal, the cost of repairing which might be $1500 or $2000, the money, and credit of the company, would not be sufficient to secure the repair of it, but that the company must, thereupon, be declared to be utterly bankrupt."

At an extra session of the Maryland legislature which was convened in March, 1841, by the proclamation of the governor, to provide means to pay the interest on the state debt, an application for further aid was again made by the company. On the fifth of April, 1841, an act was passed for an additional loan of two millions of dollars, payable in six per cent stock, or bonds of the state, which the legislature required to be sold by the treasurer of the state in behalf of the company. "The bonds were made to rest, upon the faith of the State and upon a specific pledge of the proceeds of the State's investments in the capital stock of the company, for the payment of principal and interest. The act, however, contained, as conditions precedent, clauses requiring the several companies of Allegany county, to enter into bond, satisfactory to the treasurer of the State, for the construction of a rail road, from the [coal] mines, to connect with the canal, and to complete the same simultaneously with its completion to Cumberland; and also, to guaranty the payment, to the company, of at least $200,000, per annum, for the transportation of their own coal on the canal." The board of directors, as well as the coal and iron companies of Allegheny County, made strenuous efforts to comply with these conditions, but the securities offered were not satisfactory to the treasurer of the state and the act failed. Later it was repealed.

At the December session, 1841, the professional beggar again asked aid of the legislature, but failed to secure it. For some time previous several contractors had been prosecuting the work on the canal on

Scrip Issued by the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company

their own credit and at their individual expense, quite sure that the state would make an appropriation at this session. Failing to receive the desired assistance, the work on the canal stopped abruptly immediately after the adjournment of the legislature, and before the end of the year 1841 not a man was in employ between Dam No. 6 and Cumberland. At this time, prostrate and overwhelmed with difficulties, the company experienced great depression. Not only were there great liabilities to the state, secured by mortgage liens on the canal and its revenues, but in addition to this, the debts and obligations of the company due to individuals on scrip, acceptances, certificates of debt, common loans and open amounts, as stated in the treasurer's abstract, on October 1, 1843, amounted to $1,174,566.31. The urgent appeals for payment coming from those creditors, to whom large amounts were due for work done, and who had been quite reduced to poverty, excited general sympathy. The canal had been completed to Dam No. 6 in 1839, to which point it was now only navigable. The chief engineer estimated that it would cost $1,545,000 to complete the eighteen and three-tenths miles to Cumberland. The United States, the state of Virginia, the cities of the District of Columbia and all the stockholders had long since discontinued their patronage and refused all pecuniary aid; even the state of Maryland, which had heretofore sustained the company and loyally upheld it in all its misfortunes, was now unable to give further assistance. The state was struggling under the evils of disordered finances and prostrate credit and a black shadow had been cast upon the name of the state because of its great debt contracted in behalf of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Unable, because of the want of timely legislation, after the default of the internal improvement companies was made known, to meet her own public liabilities, she was certainly unable to give assistance to others. So the canal had no friend and no resources. The freshets of April and September, 1843, made heavy breaches in the canal which had to be repaired. This was done by the aid of accommodations from the banks and as a consequence the deficit was large and embarrassing at the close of that year. The entire revenues of the year only amounted to $47,635.51 and the current expenses to $83,792.80, showing a deficit of $36,157.29.

At the December session, 1844, application was renewed for a waiver of the state liens on the revenues of the canal so as to empower the company to issue its bonds, with preferred liens on its revenues to an amount not exceeding two millions of dollars. In principle and amount it was similar to the measure which had been proposed and rejected at the sessions of 1841 and 1842. Those who had been friends to the company during previous periods of difficulty were now conspicuous for their absence only, and the officers alone stood in vindication of the measure. Instead of a state convention and primary meetings to sustain and encourage the company, it was surrounded by enemies who opposed. The city of Baltimore took decided grounds in opposition to it, and the newspapers of the city were full of communications adverse to the proposed measure. The rail road company with diplomatic skill sought to crush the effort by statements to the effect that a connection between the rail road and canal at Dam No. 6 would render further prosecution of the canal unnecessary. It also with probably a similar object in view stated that "many years would elapse, before the demand for coal would require more than 100,000 tons, in any one year, whatever facilities or transportation may be afforded." Had the same opposition been brought forward in December of 1834 or 1835 the work on the canal at that time would probably have been stopped; for, even with the powerful support of the immediate friends of the internal improvement companies, and the influential backing of the city of Baltimore, the appropriations of 1834 and 1835 were obtained only after a prolonged struggle, especially on the part of the canal company. The question of 1844 was one of an entirely different nature. It was not a question of internal improvement—not whether the wealth in the mountains should be added to the general aggregate of the state's resources, but a question of finance—a question of whether the millions which the state had invested in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, should be given up as irretrievably lost or an effort be made to make the investment productive. Maryland had already expended seven millions on the work and had never expected any return from it until after completion. Neither money nor the state's credit was now asked, only that, since she herself was in pecuniary difficulties arising mainly from her support of the company (and these investments would remain unproductive until the completion of the canal) the state would waive her unprofitable liens on the revenues to such an extent as would enable the company to finish the work upon a preferred pledge of its future income. Although the opposition was great and influential there were Marylanders in the house of delegates at the December session, 1844, who believed in the importance of the completion of the canal and whose judgment was earnestly enlisted in favor of the plan. After a prolonged struggle the act waiving the liens of the state,^[59] under which the canal was completed, was passed—passed on the last day of the session, March 10, by the limitation of the constitution, and received a majority of one vote in each house of the assembly! And, even then, it had been so modified that its most prominent advocates pronounced it valueless and felt disposed to abandon its support!

In the charter of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, prior to the year 1844, there was no express power to borrow money for the completion of the canal, and its right to do so had been much questioned. Even the force and validity of the mortgages which it had given the state to secure the payment of the two million loan were called in question. Also, the time limited by the charter for the completion of the canal to Cumberland expired in 1840, and since that time the corporation had existed merely by the suffrance of the power which had created it. No steps had been taken to procure amendments in either of these points. In the belief that the measure suggested by the company for the completion of the canal must prevail, and that it would prove ineffectual unless these defects in the charter were remedied, the board of president and directors, at the session of 1843, transmitted a memorial to the legislature of Virginia asking for the passage of an act providing for these amendments. It also asked that the powers of the company be enlarged, in regard to extending the canal by a slackwater improvement to the mouth of Savage River whenever it seemed expedient. This memorial was accompanied by a draft of a bill which embraced the desired provisions and contained a reservation as to the liens of Maryland. The legislature of Virginia promptly acted and, with unimportant changes, passed the bill on January 20, 1844. The act provided for an extension of the time for the completion of the canal to Cumberland to the first of January, 1855; and authority was conferred upon the president and directors, or a majority of them assembled, "to borrow money, . . to carry into effect the objects authorized by the charter of the company, to issue bonds or other evidences of such loans, and to pledge the property and revenues of the company, for the payment of the same, and the interest to accrue thereon, in such form, and to such extent, as they may deem expedient; with a proviso saving the prior rights or liens of the state of Maryland, under the mortgages which had been executed by the company, to this state, except in so far as they should be waived, deferred, or postponed, by the Maryland legislature." When the company's acceptance was sent to the state treasurer, the act went into effect. The mortgage, bearing date of January 8, 1846, and executed in favor of the state of Maryland, was placed in the hands of the treasurer by the canal company. The amendments to the charter were ratified by Congress about one month before the passage of the act waiving the liens for the completion of the canal.

Considering the general depreciation of American securities and Maryland's discredit at this period, and the small means allowed for the accomplishment of the ends proposed, a sale of bonds at par was entirely out of the question. The only practicable course for the company to follow was a resort to a contract payable in bonds covering all the subjects necessary to be provided for; this course was adopted. The board, with the approval of the Maryland state agents, after advertising for proposals, concluded a contract which was carefully guarded in all its provisions, on the twenty-fifth of September, 1845. For the consideration of $1,625,000 of the bonds to be issued under and pursuant to the act of 1844,^[60] the four contractors pledged themselves to commence the work within thirty days and finish the canal to Cumberland within two years, according to the estimate of 1842; they were, also, "to pay to a trustee, for the use of the company, in twenty-one monthly instalments, an aggregate sum of $100,000 in money, to enable the Board of President and Directors to liquidate land claims, engineering, and other incidental expenses—and to pay the interest on the bonds to be issued under the act, until, and including the half year's interest that would fall due, after the work had been finished."

Very soon after the contract was made, the contractors commenced work on the canal between Dam No. 6 and Cumberland. All went well until the legislature again met and adjourned without restoring the credit of the state, when, their private means being exhausted, once more the contractors were compelled to suspend operations about June 1, 1846. The chief engineer's last report, made before the suspension, shows that the work done under the contract, according to the revised estimate of August 1845, amounted to $55,384. In addition to all other misfortunes, during the years 1846 and 1847 a series of freshets occurred in this region, one following the other in rapid succession. The lower division of the canal was repeatedly damaged until this increase of expense became very embarrassing. Nor were they able to make these repairs without the aid of temporary loans obtained from the banks.

After the execution of the contract for the completion of the canal, two of the original contractors of the co-partnership withdrew and Thomas G. Harris, of Washington County, Maryland, went in with the remaining two—James Hunter, of Virginia, and William B. Thompson, of the District of Columbia. The new firm was called "Hunter, Harris and Co." In November, 1847, the contract was greatly modified; the time for the completion was extended, specific changes in the plan of construction were made, and certain portions of the work were entirely dispensed with—all this with a view to a saving of cost, which was absolutely necessary. Under the new contractors' management operations were quickly resumed, but, prosecuted under such constant embarrassment, again ceased March 11, 1850. The contractors made great sacrifices in their sales of the bonds, and, although stimulated to perseverance in the honest expectation of completing the canal, they had previously abandoned all hope of profit, and found the pressure too great to continue. This suspension, however, lasted but a few days. Hunter, Harris, and Company made an assignment of their interest in the contract to two of their agents and attorneys, for the benefit of their creditors, and the work was recommenced and continued until July, 1850, when it was again abandoned because of the usual lack of means. Upon the seventeenth of July the board of president and directors formally declared the canal abandoned and on the following day entered into a new contract with Michael Byrne, of Frederick county, for the completion of the canal to Cumberland. The work remaining to be done was inconsiderable, yet tedious, consisting of numerous unfinished portions between Dam No. 6 and Cumberland. This work was promptly commenced and diligently prosecuted, and the canal was opened for navigation purposes, and through trade commenced, on October 10, 1850. Mr. Byrne continued to press forward the work, which did not interfere with the passage of the boats, and on February 17, 1851, the final payment was made to him under the provisions of the contract. From this time the completion of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal may be dated.

From the clerk's statement made from the books of the company, with an additional allowance for a few small unsettled claims, it appears that "the cost of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, from the mouth of the Tyber in the city of Washington, to the town of Cumberland, a distance of one hundred and eighty-five and seven tenths miles, for construction, engineer expenses, lands, and other contingencies properly applicable to construction, amounts, in the aggregate, to the sum of $11,071,176.21, or $59,618.61 per mile." It is interesting to note that the original estimate for a canal of less dimensions, made by the experienced General Bernard in 1826, was $8,177,081.05, or $43,963 per mile. This estimate did not embrace land purchases or condemnations nor make any provision for contingencies with the exception of an allowance of $157,161 for fencing, which, in the statement of cost, is included under the head of lands. Therefore, in order to make a just comparison between the original estimate and the actual cost of the canal there should be added to General Bernard's estimate the cost of those items which are excluded from it, and included in the clerk's statement, after deducting the amount for fencing already embraced in the estimate.

Bernard's estimate, exclusive of land purchases, condemnations and contingencies .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		$8,177,081.05
Add the items excluded, viz., actual cost of lands, deducting therefrom $157,161, for fencing, already embraced in the estimate .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		267,562.91
Engineer expenses .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		429,845.94
Incidental damages .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		28,870.09
Pay of officers, say .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		80,000.00
Total .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		$8,983,359.99
Aggregate actual cost, as per clerk's statement .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		11,071,176.21
Excess of actual cost over original estimate, with the above additions―twenty-three and one-fifth per cent, or .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .		$2,087,816.22

It is rather a difficult undertaking to give a brief yet succinct and accurate history of the old waterway since 1850. In a nutshell, the history of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal from its completion to 1889 may truthfully be said to be a history of the Democratic party in the state of Maryland during that period. It was used as a political machine and lever by that party at the expense of its physical and financial good. The officers of the company were appointed by the Board of Public Works of the state, some of whom were ex officio members of the board of directors. The members of the Board of Public Works were appointed by the governor of the state, and in that way the management of the canal was controlled by the party in power, which, during that period, was the Democratic party. There was much litigation in an effort by some of the holders of bonds to protect themselves, but it was always unsuccessful. Mr. Gorman, now Senator A. P. Gorman, was president for a number of years. It is an open secret throughout the state that it was on the placid waters of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal that the senator rode into the high dignity of a Senatorial seat. The canal was in every way a financial failure and paid nothing to the holders of its debentures. There are today thousands of dollars of unpaid wages, due for labor and material supplied. It has cost the state of Maryland millions of dollars, none of which are likely to ever find their way back to the state coffers. Conducted upon an economical and businesslike basis, it should have been a source of revenue.

The disastrous floods of 1889 caused such damage to the waterway that a large sum was required to restore it. The state refused further financial aid and, in consequence, the canal lay abandoned. The Democratic politicians of the state, many of whom were interested in the West Virginia Central Railway, made an effort, through an act passed in Maryland legislature, to sell the valuable property and its franchises to that rail road for a nominal price; in fact were on the point of disposing, for about two hundred thousand dollars, of a property worth millions. After the passage of the act and its signature by the

A View of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal

[This part of the canal, at the entrance of the tunnel thirty miles east of Cumberland, shows the expensive nature of portions of the work]

governor, the holders of the bonds which were authorized to be issued in 1844, and which were issued in 1848, stepped in. When these bonds were authorized there were already so many liens upon the canal that it was a well-known fact that no market would be found for them. Realizing this fact, the state, to give them a value, waived its rights, under previous issues and loans, as we have seen, in favor of these bonds about to be put upon the market, and also securing them by a mortgage on the tolls and revenues of the canal. The holders of these bonds arose and petitioned the courts to protect them, claiming that a sale of the canal to the rail road would destroy the corpus, and that with the corpus destroyed, the toll and revenue earning capacity would cease. In other words they claimed that a mortgage on the tolls and revenues constituted a mortgage on the corpus. They further petitioned that the court appoint trustees to operate the canal for the bondholders of 1848, thereby enabling them to have an opportunity to protect themselves. The case was bitterly fought in the courts and ended finally by the granting of the petition. Trustees were appointed for a term of four years to show what they could do. Then the canal was repaired, at a cost of over half a million dollars. In 1891 traffic was resumed and has been going steadily on since that time. That the court is evidently satisfied with the showing made by the trustees is attested by the fact that, at the expiration of the four years originally granted (in which to show that they could run the canal successfully) the court granted an extension of that time for four years more, and at the expiration of the latter grant, further increased it four years, and so on.

The Canal is now, as it has been since 1891, operated by the trustees, under mortgage of Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, dated June 5, 1848.

1. Scharf's, History of Maryland, vol. iii, p. 156.
2. Baltimore, 1824.
3. House Docs. no. 10, 19th Cong., 2d. Sess., p. 9.
4. An Account of Surveys and Examinations, p. 3.
5. The probable success of a tunnel of a mile and a half in length was not doubted at this time. The Trent–Mersey Canal in England had five tunnels in ninety-three miles, and one (at Harecastle) was more than a mile and a half long, and over two hundred feet beneath the surface of the earth. Its cost was £31 10s 8d per yard. The Chesterfield canal had a tunnel at Hartshill three thousand yards long.—An Account of Surveys and Examinations, p. 57, note.
6. History of Maryland, vol. iii, pp. 156–157.
7. Niles Register, vol. xxv, p. 173.
8. Id., pp. 173–175.
9. See note 33.
10. “Passed meeting,” a practice among the Friends previous to the marriage ceremony.
11. National Intelligencer; Niles Register, vol. xxv, p. 175.
12. Id., pp. 174–175.
13. See appendix B, p. 225.
14. While the law divided the canal into only two sections, eastern and western, the engineers divided it into three, eastern, middle, and western. The two former met at Cumberland, and the latter began at the mouth of Casselman's River.
15. State Papers 19th Cong., 2nd Sess., Doc. no. 10.
16. See Historic Highways of America, vol. iii, p. 133.
17. Id., p. 62.
18. Id., pp. 65–80.
19. Scharf's History of Maryland, vol. iii, p. 165.
20. Niles Register, vol. xxv, p. 145.
21. Scharf's History of Maryland, vol. iii, p. 164.
22. W. P. Smith's A History and Description of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road (Baltimore, 1853), p. 13.
23. Niles Register, vol. xxxiv, p. 266.
24. Id., p. 282.
25. Id.
26. Id., p. 267.
27. Id., vol. xxxiv, pp. 325–328.
28. Id., pp. 317–318.
29. Id., p. 331.
30. Report of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company (for 1851), pp. 1–44.
31. Scharf's History of Maryland, vol. iii, p. 170.
32. Id., vol. xxxii p. 100 (from the Baltimore American).
33. Smith's History and Description of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road, p. 22.
34. Reizenstein's, "The Economic History of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad," Johns Hopkins University Studies, fifteenth series, vii–viii, p. 23; Congressional Debates, vol. vi (1829–30), pp. 453–455, 1136–1137.
35. Niles Register, vol. xxxiii, pp. 137–138.
36. Report from the President of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company to the Legislature of Maryland, January 31, 1831.
37. Report to the Stockholders . . made February 27th, 1851, p. 47. Many of the following facts are taken from this Report, which is the only history of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company extant. It will be referred to as Report of 1851.
38. Id., p. 48.
39. Id., p. 50.
40. Id., p. 52.
41. Id., p. 61 (Laws of 1835, ch. 395).
42. The canal had been built at this time only to Holman's Dam, twenty-six miles above Harper's Ferry, eighty-six miles from Washington; twenty-six miles more were under way.—Report of the President and Directors. . . April 22, 1835.
43. Report of 1851, p. 66.
44. Smith's History and Description, p. 25.
45. Baltimore American, July 17, 1830.
46. Scharf's History of Maryland, vol. iii, p. 167.
47. Smith's History and Description, pp. 25–27; Brown's History of the First Locomotives in America, p. 124. The name is here given as "Meteor."
48. Id., pp. 124–125.
49. Peter Cooper to Wm. H. Brown, Id., p. 109.
50. Id., pp. 114–116.
51. Id., p. 119.
52. Smith's History and Description, p. 33.
53. Reizenstein's Economic History, p. 34. It is interesting to find Jonathan Knight, formerly Superintendent of the Cumberland Road in Ohio, now Chief Engineer of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road.—Cf. Historic Highways of America, vol. x, p. 91.
54. Smith's History and Description, p. 30.
55. Smith's History and Description, pp. 78–81.
56. Mr. Swann was elected president of the rail road in 1848 and had ably conducted its affairs during the past five critical years, a worthy successor of Thomas and McLane.—Id., p. 156.
57. Maryland Laws, 1838, ch. 386.
58. Maryland Laws, 1838, ch. 396.
59. Maryland State Laws, 1844, ch. 281.
60. Maryland State Laws, 1844, ch. 281.