Sold – The Original Document in Which George Washington Loaned His Entire Personal Stock in the Potomac River Company, Which He Helped to Found

The picturesque Potomac River was a current that ran through Washington’s life. As a young man, under the supervision of Lord Fairfax of Virginia, he surveyed the Lord’s landholdings traveling west along the Potomac and then up into the Ohio Valley. He was impressed with what he saw and never forgot it. His estate of Mount Vernon lay on the Potomac and he devoted much time between the end of the Revolution and his assumption of the presidency to a plan to use that river to improve travel to the interior of the country, and specifically to use it as an artery to open the Ohio Valley and enable its vast raw materials to be shipped to eastern cities and seaports. This would benefit the Potomac region, but it would also increase trade and prosperity and thereby bind the states together in a framework of commerce and mutual interest. 

In 1784, a year after the Treaty of Paris was signed, Washington traveled to Annapolis to seek Maryland’s financial support for the project.  He also urged Virginia Governor Benjamin Harrison to bring the matter to the Virginia Assembly, citing the “commercial and political importance” of the project.  Washington’s subsequent visit to Annapolis was successful and led to the incorporation of the Potomac Company in 1784 Maryland, and Virginia followed in 1785. In 1908 the Inlands Waterways Commission noted, “The earliest movement toward developing the inland waterways of the country began when, under the influence of George Washington, Virginia and Maryland appointed commissioners primarily to consider the navigation and improvement of the Potomac; they met in 1785 in Alexandria and adjourned to Mount Vernon, where they planned for extension, pursuant to which they reassembled with representatives of other States in Annapolis in 1786; again finding the task a growing one, a further conference was arranged in Philadelphia in 1787, with delegates from all the States. There the deliberations resulted in the framing of the Constitution, whereby the thirteen original States were united primarily on a commercial basis — the commerce of the times being chiefly by water.”

The first subscription and dispersement of stock took place in 1784. Washington bought five shares at  £100 each. Washington, who was the very active president of the company until 1789, learned in early 1796 that the new president of the company, his protege Tobias Lear, had bought twenty shares to bolster confidence in the company. In April 1796 Washington bought three of Lear’s shares, and in May 1797 he bought fifteen more from Lear, who was in bad financial circumstances.  This left him with 23 shares. He was also given 50 shares by the state of Virginia, which he set aside to use for his own gain and rather left to found a national university where “youth from all parts of the United States” might go to be educated in the arts and sciences, and to study “the principles of Politics and good Government.” This became the George Washington University. So these 23 shares were the entirety of what he considered his personal ownership of the company, as the Washington Papers Project points out.  

In the charter, the Potomac Company had three years to clear the upper Potomac, and ten years to build a bypass canals and locks around the Little and Great Falls (a distance of 175 miles).  Unexpected expenses for repairs, labor, and other costs led to a lack of funds, and by 1797 the directors found themselves desperate. The company first turned to Maryland and Virginia for money, but the states refused. In this environment, it next turned to its benefactors for help.  In the authoritative book on the subject, Early Chapters in the Development of the Potomac Route, the author describes an emergency meeting in February 1798.  “The directors were then authorized to borrow not more than 100 shares from the proprietors to mortgage for loan, said stock to be returned on or before August, 1800. Washington attended this meeting and voted his shares in favor. Then Washington and Daniel Carroll stepped forward and pledged their shares as security so the company could borrow the money from a bank. Correspondence exists in relation to this loan, such as his March 13, 1798 letter to a fellow director asking for logistical clarification, a May letter to Clement Biddle directing its proper implementation, and a letter from William Hartshorne, the company treasurer, also from May (now in the Museum of American Finance). However, the shares transfer document, which unpublished, appeared until now to have been lost.

This is that document, the original, which transfers the entirety of his personal stock in the company back to the company as a loan.  It is an uncommon format, is filled in entirely in his hand, and was apparently not known to be still in existence. 

Partly Printed, Partly Holograph Autograph Document Signed, Mount Vernon, March 27, 1798, filled in entirely by Washington, who has signed it three times, twice using his full signature and once writing out his full name, transferring his 23 shares for the price of one dollar, a formality meant to effectuate a loan.  “Know all men by these presents that I George Washington, of the County of Fairfax, in the state of Virginia for and in consideration of the sum of one dollar, current money of the United States, to me in hand paid, by William Hartshorne Treasurer of the Potomac Company, the receipt whereof I do hereby acknowledge, have bargained, sold and conveyed and by these presents do bargain, fell and convey unto the said William Hartshorne Twenty Three whole shares in the stock, canals, works and lands belonging to the Potomak Company, which twenty three shares now stand to my credit in the books of said company….” Washington has written his name at the top of the document, signed with his full large signature at the bottom of the declaration and then again to acknowledge the payment at the very bottom.  This document is also signed by Thomas Peter, his step-grandson in law, Lawrence Lewis, his nephew, and W. Dandridge (likely William Dandridge, another nephew).