***Mount Vernon Conference***

***by John Clifford***

For most of his life, George Washington had a vision of using the
Potomac River as a trade route to the interior of the continent.
Unfortunately, two obstacles, one political and one physical stood in
their way. The political obstacle was our national government in the
form of the Articles of Confederation. In addition, a series of five
waterfalls; House Falls and Shenandoah Falls near Harper\'s Ferry, West
Virginia; Seneca Falls, near Seneca, Maryland; and Great Falls, and
Little Falls, just north of Washington; made navigating the river
impossible. However, visionaries like Washington and pragmatists like
Thomas Stone knew that the best way to make sure that the fledgling
United States would continue to grow was to ensure that the frontier was
economically linked to the coastal ports. Under the Articles of
Confederation, the thirteen original states were essentially separate
countries. This meant that any attempt to make the Potomac River
navigable would require a treaty between the Commonwealth of Virginia
and the State of Maryland. With this in mind, James Madison introduced a
bill to the Virginia legislature naming himself, George Mason, Edmund
Randolph, and Alexander Henderson commissioners to meet with a group of
commissioners from Maryland. These commissioners were to \"...frame such
liberal and equitable regulations concerning said river as may be
mutually advantageous to the two states and that they make report
thereon to the General assembly.\" Thomas Johnson pushed the same bill
through the Maryland Assembly naming himself, Thomas Stone, Samuel Chase
and Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer as commissioners. In March of 1785,
Thomas Stone, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Samuel Chase, George Mason
and Alexander Henderson met with George Washington at Mount Vernon to
create the treaty. The Mount Vernon Compact was signed and forwarded to
the respective legislatures on March 28th. When the Compact reached the
Maryland Senate, Stone introduced a further stipulation: \"That joint
application be made to Congress for consent to form a compact for the
purpose of affording in and in just proportion naval protection to the
Chesapeake Bay and Potomac river which may be left unprovided for by
congress; \--That currencies should be regulated; \--That duties and
imposts should be the same in both states; That commissioners should be
appointed to regulate commerce; \-- That Delaware and Pennsylvania
should be notified and requested to join with Virginia and Maryland.\"
The original compact and Stone\'s amendment were ratified by both
states. This exposed a serious flaw in the Articles of Confederation;
under Article Six, no state could enter into a treaty with another state
without the approval of Congress. Maryland and Virginia did not have
congressional approval when the Mount Vernon Compact was signed. To make
matters worse, it was conceivable that one or more of the other states
may have objections to the compact, particularly if they were developing
their own trade routes to the west and objected to the competition from
the Potomac River route. Compounding the problem was the fact that on
January 5, 1785 the Virginia Assembly approved the creation of the
Patowmack Company. ![](media/image1.png){width="2.0833333333333335in"
height="2.09375in"}The company was created \"for opening and extending
the Navigation of the River Patowmack.\" In other words, the Virginia
Assembly had created a company to build skirting canals around the falls
on a river that belonged to another state (the state boundary is the
Virginia shoreline, not the center of the river), before they had
approved the illegitimate Mount Vernon Compact allowing them to do so.
This lead to a great deal of consternation in the Continental Congress,
most of the delegates understood the need for the canals, but realized
that there had to be an easier way to make it work. To this end,
Maryland and Virginia invited the rest of the states to a convention in
Annapolis in 1786 \"to consider how far a uniform system in their
commercial regulations may be necessary to their common interest.\" This
Annapolis Convention also led to the constitutional convention in May of
1787.

![](media/image2.jpeg){width="4.166666666666667in" height="2.78125in"}

### Great Falls on the Potomac 

Of all the problems facing the young company perhaps the most daunting
was the actual construction of the canal at Great Falls. At Great Falls,
the elevation of the river drops almost 80 feet in less than a mile, and
part of the canal would have to be carved out of solid rock. Most of the
canal is little more than a shallow ditch, perhaps six to ten feet deep,
and fourteen feet wide. The canals dried up completely during droughts
and were unusable during floods. Locks three, four, and five, are
usually listed among the greatest engineering feats of the 18th century,
and their construction marks the first time that black powder was used
to blast through solid rock in the United States. Unfortunately, neither
Stone nor Washington lived long enough to see the canal completed, Stone
died in 1787, and Washington died in 1799; the canal wasn\'t finished
until 1802. The canal, while mechanically successful, was a financial
failure and was acquired by the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company in
1828.

![](media/image3.jpeg){width="4.166666666666667in"
height="2.7805555555555554in"}

### Patowmack Canal Lock 1 

It is not difficult to understand the motivation behind this engineering
feat, both Stone and Washington depended on the Potomac River as a
transportation link to the rest of the world. In Washington\'s case in
particular, the commercial implications were enormous, the amount of
trade that could be conducted between the rapidly growing interior and
his home town of Alexandria was staggering. Stone no doubt realized that
even though Alexandria would continue to be the main port on the river,
towns like Georgetown and Port Tobacco would also benefit. Today, both
the remains of the canal around Great Falls and Thomas Stone\'s home,
Haberdeventure are National Parks. The canal is located in [Great Falls
Park](http://www.nps.gov/gwmp/grfa/pato.htm), Virginia, a unit of the
George Washington Memorial Parkway. [Thomas Stone National Historic
Site](http://www.nps.gov/archive/thst/home.htm) is located near Port
Tobacco, Maryland. [Mount
Vernon](http://www.sightsmag.com/usa/va/mtve/sights/move/move.htm) is
operated by the Mount Vernon Ladies\' Association, and is also open to
the public.