GEORGE WASHINGTON MEMORIAL PARKWAY Patowmack Canal and Locks (Great Falls Section) Historic Structures Report — Architectural Data Section

Great Falls Park, Virginia, is the most northern unit of the George Washington Memorial Parkway. The enabling legislation for the parkway is the Capper-Crampton Act of 1930, with amendments, (P.L. 699, 79th Congress) authorizing the funding of a parkway in Virginia from Mount Vernon to a point above the Great Falls of the Potomac. It states as a purpose of the Great Falls unit ". . .the protection and preservation of the natural scenery of the gorge (now named Mather Gorge) and the Great Falls of the Potomac and the preservation of the historic Patowmack Canal. . .".

Human occupation of the area pre-dates European discovery and settlement of the area. The name "Patowmack," or Potomac as we know it today, is said to mean "trading place" in the Algonquin language and thus it was when the pioneers came to use the Potomac River as a highway to America's interior. Indians had used the Great Falls area as a trading center long before John Smith reached Great Falls in 1608, and native American camp sites have been found within the park's boundaries. A large area of Virginia, including the Northern Neck and northward up to and including the Great Falls area, was given to Lord Culpeper and six other gentlemen in 1649. Lord Culpeper bought the entire property and it eventually passed to Bryan Fairfax.

George Washington, living below Great Falls at Mount Vernon, had always shown an active interest in the navigational potential of the Potomac as a highway to the western lands. As a young man, before the French and Indian Wars of the 1750s, Washington had travelled through the Potomac and Shenandoah River valleys, dreaming of ways that this vast area might be settled. The first attempted organized European use of the Great Falls tract was by the Ohio Company, formed in 1749, of which Washington was a stockholder. Washington believed that, by making the entire Potomac navigable, trade would be more strongly established with the west, strengthening Virginia's economy and welding Tidewater Virginia with the western territories. By 1772 Washington, as a member of the Virginia Assembly, had secured legislation authorizing the construction of a canal system connecting the tidewater Potomac with the Ohio River.

The 1772 legislation enabled Washington and John Ballendine of Fairfax County, who had studied canal construction in England, to form the Patowmack Canal Company. Work on improving the Potomac for upriver navigation was begun, but was halted when the War for Independence intervened. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1783) and the end of the War for Independence, Washington was again able to turn his thoughts toward the Potomac and its navigational potential. In May, 1785, Washington organized the Patowmack Company at Alexandria, Virginia. This was the first project begun within the new United States of America to improve river navigation for public use. The clear channel-canal system constructed on and beside the Potomac River, including the five-lock canal at Great Falls, has been called the greatest engineering achievement of the 18th century in America.

The Mount Vernon Compact of 1785 declared the Potomac River a common highway of Virginia, Maryland, and the new nation. Problems addressed during the Mount Vernon meeting dealing with interstate commerce led to the Annapolis Convention the next year. This in turn led to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, where the Constitution of the United States was written and adopted. Seventeen years in the building and completed in 1802, the clear channel-canal system of the Patowmack Company allowed full water passage from tidewater to above Cumberland, Maryland, where the system connected with the National Road.

To excavate the canal through the hard metamorphic rock found at Great Falls the use of black powder was required. This was the first time black powder was used for a major construction project. Especially spectacular are locks Four and Five, which were constructed through a rock formation blasted open by black powder. Blasting was performed by placing powder charges in cylindrical drill holes and then igniting the charges; the work accomplished was so magnificent that visitors and engineers from Europe travelled out of their way to see this engineering marvel.

In 1793, Virginia authorized the Patowmack Company to establish along the Great Falls Canal a 43-acre town. Henry "Light Horse-Harry" Lee leased the land from Bryan Fairfax and named the town Matildaville in honor of his first wife and cousin Matilda Lee. The town at its height consisted of a gristmill, sawmill, market house, foundry/forge, inn, canal superintendent's house, several small two-story houses which served as storehouses and living quarters, and numerous huts used to quarter the more than 150 laborers who worked on the construction of the Great Falls Canal. Matildaville survived through the mid-19th century and served as the headquarters of the Great Falls Manufacturing Company, which existed for the most part only on paper. The rights and property of the Great Falls Manufacturing Company passed to the Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO). PEPCO in turn traded their Great Falls property to the United States government, and this land became Great Falls Park. The Great Falls Manufacturing Company was headquartered in Matildaville's Dickey's Inn, which served every president from George Washington to Teddy Roosevelt.

Confronted with high construction and maintenance costs and low revenues, the Patowmack Company never was a successful venture. Both floods and low water flows made the waterway impractical. The Company eventually transferred its rights and privileges to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company in 1828 and soon faded into memory. Though a commercial failure, the Patowmack Company and what it hoped to achieve left a legacy of extreme importance. The Potomac River project spurred a wave of canal construction that helped settle the west and establish a thriving trade system between the cities of the east and the settlers of the west.

During the early 20th century two wealthy businessmen, John R. McLean and Stephen B. Elkins, began the development of a park at Great Falls. Their park included a hotel, dance pavilion, lookout observation tower, refreshment stands, carousel, and picnic grounds. Beginning in 1906, public transportation was provided by the Old Dominion Railroad, a 14 mile trolley line originating in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. Old Dominion Drive is located on the old trolley right-of-way. In 1952 the Fairfax County Park Authority acquired the land nearest Great Falls. This area was maintained by Fairfax County until 1966, when a series of acts by Congress enabled the National Park Service to acquire the present 800 acres from Fairfax County and PEPCO, including the entire Patowmack Canal, the Matildaville site, the Potomac River shoreline from above Great Falls to Difficult Run, and an abundance of woodland. The Patowmack Canal at Great Falls has been designated a National Historic Landmark, a Virginia Historic Landmark, and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.