The Potomac River was a current that ran through George Washington's life and through the early history of this country. Born downstream at Pope's Creek Plantation, Washington lived most of his life along the Potomac's banks. As a young man, he devoted much time and energy to surveying the river's length and to finding ways to use the river to improve travel to the interior of the country and gain access to the vast raw materials of the fertile Ohio Valley. As President, he chose to site the Nation's Capital along the Potomac, strategically located between northern and southern states and just sixteen miles upriver from his Mount Vernon estate.
[Captions:]
The Fairfax Stone, marking the source or "first fountain of the Potwmack," defines the boundaries of several counties and the final state boundary between West Virginia and Maryland.
In 1649, the King of England granted several loyal followers land "...bounded by and within the heads of the Rivers Rappahannock and Patawmecke..." To secure this 5 million acre territory, Thomas Lord Fairfax — who had become sole proprietor of the grant through deed transfers, intrigue and marriage — commissioned several surveys. The resulting map traces the Potomac River from the Chesapeake Bay back to its source 385 miles away in the mountains of West Virginia.
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1748, a 16 year-old George Washington was invited on a month-long trip to survey a portion of the vast property owned by his neighbors, the influential Fairfax family. This trip and later expeditions took the future president west along the Potomac River into the Ohio Valley. Washington's dream was to build a canal to overcome Great Falls, depicted above, and several other obstructions to the Potomac, opening the vast interior of the country up to trade.
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