Documents Relating to the Great Falls Power Company
Includes legal proceedings between the C&O Canal and the Great Falls Power Company
(Updated December 5, 2000)

The Great Falls Power Company was incorporated and chartered in Virginia (Acts 1893-94, c. 605) and recognized by Maryland (Acts of 1894, Chapter 540). The Maryland legislature gave the company power to construct dams and use water for its operation, but later amended the act (Acts of 1900, Chapter 245) so that these powers could not infringe upon the rights, privilages, property, and workings of the C&O Canal Company.

After the incorporation of the Great Falls Power Company, it purchased land and water rights from the Great Falls Manufacturing Company in 1895 and began working on a dam from the Virginia shore into the Potomac River crossing the Maryland border near the original Great Falls lock of the Potomac Canal Company. Since the construction of the dam began in Virginia and crossed into Maryland the C&O Canal Company initiated legal action in Fairfax County, Virginia and Montgomery County Circuit Court to stop its completion. The C&O's Bill of Complaint spells out the argument of the transfer of rights from the Potomac Canal Company to the C&O Canal Company, and the exhibits list many relavent acts from the General Assemblies of Virginia and Maryland, and Congress. The case was never ruled on because the C&O Canal Company and the Great Falls Power Company reached an agreement relating to water use and compensation that included dropping legal proceedings in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

• MONTGOMERY COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records) Deed Great Falls Manufacturing Company to Great Falls Power Company, July 22, 1895,  Liber JA 49, Folio 364-378,  MSA CM705-95, CR 3470-27 Deed recorded in Montgomery County (probably recorded in Fairfax County as well) that lists property sold to the Great Falls Power Company in Maryland and Virginia. Virginia tracts include part of the land near and over the Difficult Run in VA,  the Jackson Lot in Fairfax County (anchor point for the Aquaduct dam), the greater part of the Toulson Tract in VA (originally sold by Hall Neilson to the Great Falls Manufacturing Company in 1854 and recorded in Fairfax County, VA). Maryland lands listed include Conn's Island, Neilson's Desire, and the Cyclades (6 Islands located near the head of Conn's Island). Also conveys rights vested in the Great Falls Manufacturing Company "...reserving only the claims of this company against the United States for damages for lands taken and for water heretofore diverted from the Virginia Channel in said river..."

Proceedings continued in Virginia. In 1923 the Circuit Court of Fairfax County issued a decree relating to the "...Canal Strip and to the riparian and other rights appertaining thereto..." The case centered on condemnation proceedings relating to a tract of land known as the Canal Strip located on the Virginia side of the Potomac River and is detailed in CHESAPEAKE AND OHIO CANAL CO. ET ALS. v. GREAT FALLS POWER COMPANY. Supreme Court of Virginia, 143 Va. 697; 129 S.E. 731; 1925 Va. LEXIS 299. This tract had been conveyed to the Great Falls Power Company by the Great Falls Manufacturing Company by deed dated April 2, 1895 (see deed above). While the C&O claimed the tract was still its property, the Circuit Court of Fairfax County, and subsequently the Supreme Court of Virginia, ruled that Canal Strip was now the property of the Great Falls Power Company. The opinion stated that the C&O "...once held good title to this canal strip and has lost it by abandonment and by adverse possession." The court also held that the Maryland Act ammending the original recognition of the Power Company was to be taken literally and only applied to the rights, privilages, and property of the Canal at the time the act was instituted.