{"id":358,"date":"2024-01-15T14:36:15","date_gmt":"2024-01-15T19:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/potomacrocks.com\/wordpress\/?p=358"},"modified":"2024-06-26T14:32:33","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T18:32:33","slug":"the-potomac-company-and-the-great-falls-canal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/potomacrocks.com\/wordpress\/potomac-river-and-enviorns\/the-potomac-company-and-the-great-falls-canal\/","title":{"rendered":"The Potomac Company and the Great Falls Canal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Saturday (1\/13\/2024) was a perfect day for a brisk outdoor walk. The temperature was in the 40\u2019s, and the sun was shining. I had been waiting for just such a day to re-visit Great Falls Park with particular interest in the ruins of the Potomac Company\u2019s canal and locks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An added attraction were the Falls themselves, which due to recent heavy rain were at their most ferocious. It is Great Falls, along Little Falls a bit down river, which presented to the Potomac Company the largest challenges to making the Potomac River truly navigable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Founded by George Washington in 1785, the Potomac Company sent teams of free and enslaved men up the Potomac and all of its tributaries using black powder to \u201cget the rocks out of way.\u201d They built sluices where the rivers were shallow and bypasses where there were rapids. Buoys, chained to underwater rocks led the boatmen down the rivers safely. Remember, the Potomac Company wasn\u2019t building a still-water canal as was built on the Maryland side of the river years later, rather they were simply \u201cimproving\u201d the river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1795 a canal was completed around Little Falls and in 1802 the canal around Great Falls. The later was a monumental work and enough of it survives to give one an idea of what was involved. The greatest challenge was to cut through sixty feet of solid rock and construct five locks in the final descent to the river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the completion of these two sets of locks, a boat could safely float down the Potomac River to Georgetown and beyond with tons of stone, wheat, coal and all the other products of the rich interior\u2026 BUT only on an average of fifty-seven days a year, that is, when it rained. All of the improvements by the Potomac Company were not sufficient to guarantee boat transport without the \u201cfreshets\u201d which, usually, occurred in the spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This later problem was eventually solved by the still-water C&O Canal on the Maryland side of the river who\u2019s ground-breaking was in 1828 and, ultimately, by the B&O Railroad which parallelled that canal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the river improvements by the Potomac Canal company helped Loudoun County and its surrounding neighbors become the Bread Basket of the world up through the Civil War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want to read more of my illustrated short essays about the Potomac River of the past check out my other postings on this web site. The best book on the Potomac Company is by Robert Kapsch and is titled. \u201cPotomac Canal: George Washington and the Waterway West.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The ferocious Great Falls on the Potomac after a few days of rain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"This
The entrance from the Potomac River to the Great Falls canal and locks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Now inside the canal system heading towards the locks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
An illustration of the Great Falls locks. provided by the National Park Service.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Entrance to lock 1.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Notice the rounded stone. This is where the lock gates were set.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Notice that the locks are constructed from red sandstone which was quarried a short distance up-river at the Seneca Quarry on the Maryland side. For more information on the Seneca Quarry see Seneca Quarry posting on this website.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The final descent carved out of sixty feet of solid rock using black powder and muscle.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Saturday (1\/13\/2024) was a perfect day for a brisk outdoor walk. The temperature was in the 40\u2019s, and the sun was shining. I had been waiting for just such a day to re-visit Great Falls Park with particular interest in the ruins of the Potomac Company\u2019s canal and locks. An added attraction were the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-potomac-river-and-enviorns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/potomacrocks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/potomacrocks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/potomacrocks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potomacrocks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potomacrocks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/potomacrocks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":381,"href":"https:\/\/potomacrocks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions\/381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potomacrocks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/potomacrocks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potomacrocks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potomacrocks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}