Early Efforts and The Patowmack Company
In September 1784, when George Washington was staying at Rumsey's inn, he contracted with Rumsey to build a house and stable on property he owned at Bath. During this visit, Rumsey showed Washington a working model of a mechanical boat which he had designed. It had a bow-mounted paddlewheel that worked poles to pull the boat upstream. Washington had been making plans for making the Potomac river navigable since before the Revolution, and a company was soon to be formed for the purpose. Rumsey's pole-boat, which promised to be able to ascend the river's chutes and swift currents, must have seemed a godsend to Washington, who wrote a certificate of commendation for Rumsey and likely let him know of the river project. Armed with the certificate, Rumsey obtained a patent from the Virginia legislature for "the use of mechanical boats of his model" and also gained an investor.
In July 1785, he was recommended by Washington and appointed to oversee the clearing of rocks at what is now Harper's Ferry Patowmack Company. Rumsey would thus not only be able to build a boat to ascend the river, but alter the river to enable his boat. For a year, Rumsey oversaw work on the Potomac River site, while his assistant and brother-in-law Joseph Barnes did much of the building of the boat around Shepherdstown.
Rumsey had quickly concluded that the pole-boat design was too limited and decided to incorporate steam propulsion into his design. While making his boat much more useful, it also made the building of it far more complex and expensive. Likewise, it soon was obvious that the Patowmack Company had a much greater task than any of its members had foreseen. The Company was hindered by a lack of a supervising engineer: overseers were having to improvise as best they could, and this was a frustrating process. The work required great quantities of brute labor and difficult blasting, and Rumsey found himself directing a large and restive gang of about a hundred workmen, including leased slaves and bondsmen, encamped in a remote area, without adequate supplies.
After a year Rumsey said he would resign if not given an increase in pay. Instead of an offer, his resignation was accepted, and his assistant, Richardson Stewart, was given his job. Other aspects of the matter are open to debate; Stewart may or may not have worked against Rumsey to gain his job; Rumsey thought he had, the Company (and Washington) thought Rumsey's allegations unfounded. Still, according to Company minutes, Stewart was fired soon afterward, for "sundry charges of a serious nature".
Read more about this topic: James Rumsey
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