Early Development of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Project

The Early Development of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Project.

INTRODUCTION.

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, as it exists to-day, lies on the north shore of the Potomac River, forming a navigable water-way between Georgetown, near the head of tide-water in the Potomac, and Cumberland, at the eastern
base of the Alleghany Mountains, where Will's Creek joins the Potomac. The canal is one hundred and eighty-six miles in length, sixty feet wide at the surface (with some ex-
ceptions) and six feet deep...


"The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal project" was some-
thing of a widely different character. It is to the history of the project that this monograph is chiefly devoted. So voluminous are the materials that it has been a difficult matter to select and arrange only those more important acts which have a direct bearing upon the development of the "project." The constant aim, however, has been to
do this in such a manner as to show:

I. The slow process of evolution through which the idea passed; and,

II. The relation of the United States Government to this development.