1825: The C&O Canal Company is Chartered

1825 C&O Canal Company Seal

NPS Photo

The earliest and best surviving example of an early American river navigation system was the Potowmack Canal, which had thrived for 26 years under the operation of the Patowmack Company (Potowmack Canal, n.d.). This canal system was built as a five-part skirting canal system in 1785 to bypass areas of rapids at the locations; House Falls, Shenandoah Falls, Seneca Falls, Great Falls, and Little Falls that were impassable. The river was dredged, and boulders were moved to counter elevation changes from the Potomac Gorge to Georgetown. Canal locks were built with mixed workforces: unskilled laborers, indentured servants (labor worker & non-slave), and some enslaved laborers.

Constant financial challenges caused labor to slow. Indentured servants would run away, leaving the company with little to pay for their indenture-mortgages. The heightened demand for enslaved labor to build infrastructures around the cities of Alexandria, Georgetown, and Baltimore, compounded by the lack of funds, led to the failure of the company. By the 1820s, the Patowmack Company filed for bankruptcy.

 

In 1825, the Patowmack Company was reorganized to form the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal (C&O) Company, acquiring the Patowmack Company's charter. The goal of the C&O Canal Company was to develop a waterway transportation system—canal—that would join the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River Valley (The states; Maryland and sometimes touching through the top of West Virginia) to the Ohio River Valley (East Ohio State). The knowledge of the Patowmack Canal's challenges—skirting canals—allowed the C&O to build an improved still water canal system in Maryland (The Patowmack Canal, 2020).

 

America’s First River Navigation System

To learn more about America’s first river navigation system and the skirting canals, visit:

• The Patowmack Canal - Great Falls Park
•  Canal History: Formation of the C&O Canal Company – C&O Canal Trust

 

Action Challenge

Think about the types of transportation during the nineteenth century [Roads, automobiles, steamboats, canals, and trains & railways].

1. What type of transportation do you think would have made it to the West first?
2. If you were going to start a company, think about what research would need to be done, and what documentation would need to be collected to help you make good decisions.
3. Where would you want the business to take place? Why?

Additional questions to consider:

1. What challenges would you consider?
2. What would you want your business to accomplish?
3. Who would you seek for advice?

Share your ideas with us on social media, using #FindYourPark, #candocanal and tag us @COcanalNPS.

 

References

Formation of the C&O Canal Company. (n.d.). Retrieved from Canal Trust: https://www.canaltrust.org/about-us/about-the-co-canal/history/canal-history-formation-of-the-co-canal-company/

Potowmack Canal. (n.d.). Retrieved from National Park Service: https://www.nps.gov/places/potomac-canal-historic-district.htm

The Patowmack Canal. (2020, October 19). Retrieved from National Park Service, Great Falls Park, Virginia: https://www.nps.gov/grfa/learn/historyculture/canal.htm