White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1932-08-11


ton of the George Washing
ton bicentennial, the historic Poto-
mac river, gateway to the National
Capital from the sea, also has en-
joyed the spotlight.
Interest in the Potomac is on the
march instantly one realizes that it
is the river Of Washington; Of Wash
ington the man, the greatest figure
Of our national history, and of Wash
ington the city, the capital of the ma
ton, the focus Of our national admin
istration, and the city of our history
in the making.
And our interest is accelerated AS
we realize that the old river presents
other great names of celebrities who
lived on the plantations along its
shores: the Lords Baltimore, who
planted the first settlement of Mary
land, near the rivers mouth; the Cal
verts, the Lees, the Carriers, the Han
sons, the Stones, the Fitzhughs, the
Masons, the MERGERS and the Fair
faxes.
There seem to be several Poto-
macs. There is fresh-water and there
is tidewater Potomac. The former is
all that water coming down from the
mountains and over the falls above
Washington city. That river is soon
lost in the brine of tidewater Poto-
mac, which extends from the point
of mingling to the mouth of the river,
at Chesapeake bay. Here strong tides
rise and fall, sometimes three feet
above the wharves of Washington.
Here, too, the water is briny. 1t is so
impregnated with the salt Of the sea
that, even at the head, of tidewater,
it into the boilers of their ships. This
briny reach is really not river;
1t is an arm of the Chesapeake.
Then there Is the surface Potomac
and a secret river hidden in it's
depths. The surface waters express
themselves in broad reaches between
banks of engaging loneliness. They
vary in width from one to seven
miles. The hidden river is often only
few hundred feet wide and unseen
It serpentines it's way back and forth
from one shore to the other in way
that leases and often wrecks the in
experienced mariner. 1t is called
THE channel" Up it ocean-going yes
sells of considerable size come to the
docks of Washington city.
How to See the River.
1t is in Underwater Potomac that
one finds the river of the greater in
terest, the Potomac of history, of the
landings. of the old plantations, of the
celebrities who have made it one of
the most distinguished rivers in
America.
Curiously. the better way to see
this river is not to start where it
appears to begin. and so float down
on it's currents to where it ends in
merging with the bay; but rather
to start where 1t ends and he carried
up by it's tides and by that interest
ing tide of it's history which entered
here, at it's mouth. three hundred
years ago.
The story of this trip up the broad
reaches of Underwater Potomac is &C.
tually composite of many trips. by
many kinds of land and water craft,
but here for brevity's sake. reduced
to it's simplest terms without the in
convenience of delays, whether OF
boat schedules or motor trails, with
out the disappontments Of weather
or of the many futile side trips which
anyone must make in order to find
out where are the points of genuine
interest and how to reach them.
Approaching the mouth of the river.
one specllates on such questions as,
who was the first white man who ever
came into 1t, where did the river get
it's name, and where in it is the d.
viding line between Maryland and Vir-
ginia?
The last question troubled the
dwellers on both shores for more than
2;O years Then. in 1877, commits
sion of arbitration finally placed the
waters of the river wholly within the
boundary of Maryland.
The name Potomac Is Indian. The
first explorers found tribe of that
name living on the rivers shores;
but one cannot be quite sure whether
the tribe took it's name from the
river or the river took it's name from
the tribe. 1t is now generally ac-
cepted Wat Potomac Is the Indian
word for Traders; hence the Potomac
river means the River of the
Traders.
Who First Entered III
Who was the first white man to en-
ter the river is a question less easily
answered AT one time II claim was
set up, based on va runic inscription
said to have been found below the
falls, for ian Tcelandic widow buried
here In 1851" Rather more credence