Note 44 — LETTER VI
Reading edition
It was Washington’s favorite plan to unite the waters of the Potomac and Ohio, and in turn, those of the Ohio and Lake Erie, by means of canals. The Beaver River was always one of the possible links in this chain of inland communication between the Great Lakes and tidewater. As Flint observes, the Erie Canal (completed in 1825) was the most feasible, and eventually the only successful, undertaking to join the sea and the lakes.—Ed.