| Concurrent Legislation: December 1784-January 1785
Upon his return from the "Western country" in October 1784, Washington wrote to the
Virginia Governor, Benjamin Harrison, urging him to place before the General Assembly a plan
to survey the Potomac and the James Rivers with a view to encouraging private venturers to open
the route west.'° As to the Potomac River plan, he suggested that Virginia obtain "the
concurrence of Maryland."'S Washington also pointed out the importance of Rumsey's
invention, explaining:
I consider Rumsey's discovery for working Boats against stream,
by mechanical powers (principally) as not only a very fortunate
invention for these States in general, but as one of those
circumstances which have combined to render the present epocha
favourable above all others for fixing, if we are disposed to avail
ourselves of them, a large portion of the trade of the Western
Country in the bosom of this State irrevocably."
Harrison laid Washington's letter before the Virginia legislature." Shortly thereafter, a
group of interested citizens petitioned the legislatures of both Virginia and Maryland to pass an
act of incorporation for a company.`' News of the project circulated in the public press."
sa 27 Fitzpatrick, supra note 43, at 471-80 (Letter from Washington to Harrison of
10/10/1784). Washington began by explaining that "it has been long my decided opinion that the
shortest, easiest, and least expensive communication with the invaluable and extensive Country
back of us, would be by one, or both of the rivers of this State which have their sources in the
Appalachian mountains . . . ." Id. at 472.
" Id at 478.
'6 Id. at 480. Washington had written the same language in his diary earlier in October.
2 Fitzpatrick. The Diaries of George lfashington, supra note 43, at 327-28.
5' 27 Fitzpatrick, supra note 43, at 480 n.56.
58 Id. Washington also sent a copy of the petition to Johnson. Delaplaine, supra note 30,
at 389.
s9 See Virginia Journal, Nov. 25, 1784 (describing meeting "of the Gentlemen of this
State and Maryland . . . to deliberate and consult on the vast, great, political and commercial
(continued . . .)
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