And the man at breakfast was right........i guess they gave up.........they needed a better name than "the grand old ditch"...........maybe they would have worked harder.......or maybe the moskiters got them..........................can u beat a bug??????????

History[edit]

Early river projects[edit]

After the American Revolutionary War, George Washington was the chief advocate of using waterways to connect the Eastern Seaboard to the Great Lakes and the Ohio River.^[2] In 1785, Washington founded the Potowmack Company to improve the navigability of the Potomac River. His company built five skirting canals around the major falls: Little Falls (later incorporated in the C&O Canal), Great Falls in Virginia, Seneca Falls (opposite Violette's lock), Payne's Falls of the Shenendoah, and House's Falls near Harpers Ferry.^[3] These canals allowed an easy downstream float; upstream journeys, propelled by pole, were harder.

Several kinds of watercraft were used on the Patowmack Canal and in the Potomac River. Gondolas were 60-by-10-foot log rafts usually sold at journey's end for their wood by their owners, who returned upstream on foot. Sharpers were flat-bottomed boats, 60 by 7 feet, usable only on high-water days, about 45 days per year.^[4]