| 498 !)ocumet(t.s
Thomas Johnson. They fill many gaps that Mrs. Bacon-Foster in
her excellent account of early efforts to obtain water communication
between Chesapeake Bay and the Ohio River was obliged to leave
through dearth of material.
Even granting his primary object to have been that of making his
lands on the Ohio and Potomac more valuable, nothing is more in-
dicative of genuine statesmanship in George Washington than his
early perception of the significance of the West, and his unremitting
efforts to bind it to the thirteen states by making the Potomac the
avenue of commerce for the back country. These papers show that
as early as 1754 he was studying the obstructions in the Potomac, and
that his interest never abated until his death. In his quest for accu-
rate data on the most convenient route to the Ohio, he unwittingly
preserved for posterity many valuable facts regarding early forges
and furnaces, paths and portages in the interior, cost of transportation
to tidewater from the up-country, quantities of flour and iron ex-
ported, and so forth.'
The papers when discovered were scattered through a collection
of miscellaneous manuscripts with no indication that they had ever
been together. As many were undated and unsigned, it has been
somewhat of a problem to determine sequence, authorship, etc. The
handwriting has been the surest guide to authorship, nearly all the
men with whom \-N-ashington corresponded on the subject having very
individnal autographs. The date of most of the uncertain documents
can be judged fairly closely by internal evidence. Unless otherwise
indicated, the endorsements as printed below are Washington's. Four
resolutions by Maryland and Virginia legislatures of 1784 and 1785
have been omitted, as they are to be found in the printed journals of
those years, and a few other documents for reasons indicated in
each case.
In view of the fact that Washington's letters of T75q in this
collection have already been published,' no further account of them
need be taken, except to point out what the editor has not made
sufficiently clear, namely, that the single sheet bears two letters: one
presumably to Innes, dated August la, 175¢, relating to campaign
events; the other dealing with the navigation of the Potomac, with
For Washington's interest in western lands and his early perception of the
significance of the region beyond the mountains, one could not do better
than to
read Archer B. Hulbert. Washington and the West (New York, c9o5), and
Herbert
B. :dams, " Washington's Interest in Western Lands ", in Johns Hopkins Univ.
Studies, third series, ITT. 55-77.
3 Warren Upham, " Washington's Canoe Trip down the Potomac Related
in a Letter to Colonel Innes ", in Records of the Past, IX. 7¢-79.
|
