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THE GREAT AMERICAN CANALS

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.[1] 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

  1. See appendix B, p. 225.