Chesapeake and Ohio Canal: A Guide to Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, Maryland, District of Columbia, and West Virginia (Classic Reprint) - Hardcover

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9780265611432: Chesapeake and Ohio Canal: A Guide to Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, Maryland, District of Columbia, and West Virginia (Classic Reprint)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0265611431 ISBN 13: 9780265611432

Publisher: Forgotten Books, 2018

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Excerpt from Chesapeake and Ohio Canal: A Guide to Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, Maryland, District of Columbia, and West Virginia

Looking back, canals of the period made roads of that day obsolete, but many canals were in turn made obsolete by railroads. On July 4, 1828, President John Quincy Adams turned the first shovelful of dirt on the canal. On that very day Marylander Charles Car roll was similarly launching construction of the Bal timore and Ohio Railroad in Baltimore, Maryland. The railroad beat the canal to the Cumberland coalfields and soon reached the Ohio River, but the canal was never completed beyond Cumberland.

President Adams' shovel struck roots, then rocks, symbolizing the obstacles that would confront the canal builder. The ordinarily stiff and formal Presi dent took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and tried again. The Fourth of July crowd cheered. Pres ident Adams would call this the greatest moment of his life. He had begun a project that would cost invest ors $14 million, a sum that represented then the same percentage of Gross National Product the Federal Government would one day spend to put a man on the moon. As you jog, backpack, or bike the tow path from Cumberland to Washington today, the cost strikes you as a bargain many times over.

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