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Reviews
| The Potomac Canal: George Washington and the Waterway West. By Robert J. Kapsch. Morgantown, W.Va.: West Virginia Univ. Press, 2007. 374 pp., numerous illus., maps, tables, graphs, notes, bibl., index. $40 pb (ISBN 978-10933202-18-1).
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Here it is at long last: the definitive work on what the National Park Service and the 1803 company logo call the Patowmack Canal. Robert Kapsch presents a nice piece of scholarship, embellished with a generous supply of illustrations, including many in full color.
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1
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The first chapter deals with early plans and includes estimates from two visionaries. Eugene Semple envisioned a series of sluices, primarily for downstream navigation; John Ballendine preferred bypass canals at the several falls, along with river improvements and horse paths to facilitate upstream commerce, but at a much higher cost. Kapsch provides some of the details of Ballendine's estimates but leaves readers wanting a couple of figures to make data add up as presented in his comparison table: Ballendine's proposal on page 39 is detailed incompletely or incorrectly in the preceding pages (the detailed figures for some of the bypass canals do not add up to the summary figures shown in the comparison table).
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2
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George Washington, the foremost proponent of the waterway, is discussed in chapter 2. The familiar story of his advocacy of the canal and facilitation of the resulting interstate politics is told here in detail. The first works of the company are also treated here: building sluices and removing river obstructions; they tackled the "easy" parts first. The analysis is thorough and insightful. In this and later chapters, Kapsch includes many interesting details of contracting, construction, and operation.
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3
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Chapter 3 covers the most expensive work undertaken by the company: the bypass canals at Little Falls and Great Falls. The chapter is thoroughly detailed and even identifies the quarries where the red Seneca Creek sandstone was obtained. Kapsch also mentions a rare feature: the inclined plane (and winch) used temporarily while construction proceeded on the last of the locks at Great Falls. Boats entered the finished portion of this bypass canal and unloaded; the cargo was let down the inclined plane to be reloaded onto boats below the falls to complete the journey.
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4
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Chapters 4 and 5 discuss the Shenandoah River Navigation and other canal projects in the Potomac basin. This chapter is a useful analysis of the political and corporate entanglements presented to entrepreneurs in the Early Republic as well as the technical and commercial considerations of the potential feeder canals.
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5
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"Workers of the Potomac Company, 1785–1828" (chap. 6) is a useful case study of a diverse labor force in the Early Republic. The study is based on 53 surviving payroll records from 1785–1798 as well as several other original source documents. Kapsch notes, "few eighteenth-century American enterprises have such a complete record of their labor force over such an extended period of time" (p. 213). The labor force was diverse in ways not found today, including not just race/gender/ethnicity/craft but also slave/free/ indentured. In one document, a long-time employee of the Potomac Company petitions the successor C&O Canal Company to allow him to remain in the cabin the company gave him. He recounts the many types of work he did for the company at various sites. This man started as a slave (his sympathetic master allowed him to buy manumission using his earnings while rented to the company) and continued working for the company as a free black
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6
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This chapter also provides details of several incidents of labor unrest, from drunken laborers to striking masons who refused to work under someone who had never been an apprentice mason. Kapsch also thoroughly analyzes the various ways to obtain labor: direct hire (Washington suggested increasing pay when labor was scarce), contracting, renting slaves, and "buying" indentured servants (if enough aren't found in Baltimore, try Philadelphia ...). A few women were hired (mostly as cooks), and a family of indentured servants was bought (man/wife/child). Kapsch discusses the company rations, noting that paid laborers often got their food elsewhere. The basic daily ration was usually a pound or more of meat (depending on whether it was salt or fresh and whether it was pork, beef, mutton, or fish), about 13/4 pounds of corn meal, and some rum. Workers sometimes grew vegetables on company land. The company paid in various currencies, including Virginia and Maryland pounds and pence (Kapsch also gives equivalents in 1790s dollars).
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7
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Chapters 7 and 8 detail the operation and maintenance of the Potomac River Navigation (despite the book title, and company name, Kapsch refuses to call the whole thing a canal since most of it was in-river navigation: chapter 1, note 1). This section includes a very useful traffic and revenue analysis and a discussion of boat types. Several well-done tables show tolls and revenue by year and by commodity; one table summarizes the number of boats, total tonnage, cargos, tolls, etc., for each year from 1800 to 1822.
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8
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Maintenance costs included replacement of lock gates (especially expensive for the high locks at Great Falls, subject to greater water pressure) and clearing of debris from the bypass canals, which, having no guard locks or gates, accumulated more silt, gravel, and even tree trunks than towpath canals like the C&O. The Little Falls locks, originally built of wood, needed to be rebuilt in stone. A still greater expense was maintaining the in-river sluices to provide a one-foot depth in the dry season (as called for in the charter; otherwise tolls could not be charged).The sluices accumulated silt, sand, rocks, and tree trunks as rapidly as the unprotected bypass canals. The wing dams for the sluices suffered greatly from floods and ice (and any tree trunks that were not busy clogging the sluices or bypass canals). But clearing the debris or cutting a sluice deeper was sometimes counterproductive: "by removing all the obstructions, the rapidity will of course be increased and the sooner will the deficiency in the depth be felt" (p. 296).
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9
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Chapter 9 relates the demise of the company. Kapsch mentions the main contributing factors: the loss of tolls (because of inability to maintain the chartered minimum depth in all seasons); the conventions in Washington calling for a new canal; and the Commissioners Report of 1823 (source of much of the data cited in earlier chapters). He deftly weaves the story, showing the interplay of these and other factors eventually resulting in the establishment of the C&O Canal Company and its buy-out of the Potomac Company assets in 1828. In closing, Kapsch notes the importance of the company, both as an inspiration and from a "lessons learned" perspective. Ultimately Washington's vision was fulfilled, even if not exactly by the company he fostered.
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10
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The research throughout is meticulous, using company records, other archival material, newspapers, and secondary sources. Analysis is good and includes many useful tables. The layout is very pleasing: good typeface, reasonable amounts of white space, and well-captioned illustrations judiciously placed. Equal care was exercised in the selection of illustrations for this pre-photographic era. The results are astounding: many illustrations occupy a full page or two, including several truly spectacular ones in full color. The maps, drawings, newspaper clippings, and other illustrations really help set the mood of the times as well as fulfilling their usual function of depicting things that deserve more than words alone.
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11
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There are a few editing errors. Pages 55 and 66 say "1795" when clearly "1785" is intended. The bottom of page 230 says, "Rumsey set out to diffuse this potentially explosive situation." The author clearly meant "defuse," not "diffuse." The error is repeated on the next page. Page 242 notes, "The Company expected that revenues from tolls would greatly exceed expectations"; the company might hope revenues would, or expect them to exceed expenses, but it is contradictory to expect revenues to exceed expectations. There are also a few other spelling and grammatical errors, although perhaps no more than average these days.
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12
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The book is a thorough and well-organized treatment of the subject. The endnotes frequently expand considerably on the text, also citing the many original source documents and secondary works consulted. The five-page bibliography can be considered exhaustive.
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13
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| The Potomac Canal: George Washington and the Waterway West is well researched and well written by an experienced canal historian and will long remain the definitive work on the subject. It fills a serious gap in the history of American canals and should be of interest to social, political, business, and labor historians; historians of technology; industrial archaeologists; and those interested in the history of the Early Republic. If the Potomac Canal is outshined by later canals, it is partly because the canal laid the groundwork for them in many ways. Kapsch does an excellent job of describing the canal and setting it in the proper historical light. |
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