There's a well-written, interesting book by Joel Achenbach, "The Grand  
Idea: George Wasington's Potomac and the Race to the West."  There's a good  
bit of information about the nature of the never-really-successful efforts  to 
tame the Potomac and the people involved, as well as the "grand idea" of  
Washington for creating a waterway to the west as a way of tying the 
developing  country together and, of course, building its commerce.  
The Grand Idea: George  Washington's Potomac and the Race to the West

 
 
In a message dated 3/14/2011 8:16:25 A.M. Mountain Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

Thanks  very much. I found the dissertation 
online  
http://wvuscholar.wvu.edu:8881//exlibris/dtl/d3_1/apache_media/L2V4bGlicmlzL2R0bC9kM18xL2FwYWNoZV9tZWRpYS8xNDAwOQ==.pdf




________________________________
From:  George M. Williams <[log in to unmask]>
To:  [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sun, March 13, 2011 11:31:48 PM
Subject:  Re: [VA-HIST] navigable rivers west of the Blue Ridge

The South Branch  of the Potomac was used in the Spring when the waters 
were at 
higher  levels to ship  barrels of flouer to Alexandria, the boats/barges 
were  
built in the Moorefield area, but were not returned.

You might try  Elizabeth Oliver Lee "Potomac's Valley shall become a domain 
we 
Create"  Commercialialism and the South Branch Valley 1750-1800, 
,Dissertation,  
History Department,West Virginia University, 2008,

George M.  Williams


----- Original Message ----- From: "Lyle E. Browning"  <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent:  Wednesday, March 09, 2011 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: navigable rivers west of the  Blue Ridge


Your first stop would be to visit the Virginia Canals  and Navigations 
Society 
Website. In it you will find information on  riverine traffic modes in the 
Shenandoah Valley. Bill Trout's wonderful  River Atlas series has one on 
the 
Shenandoah that will give you a  tremendous amount of information.

As for craft, these would primarily  have been batteaux or the Shenandoah 
River 
variant called a Gundalow that  had flattish ends, some of which were 
dismantled 
for use as housing boards  upon completion of their one-way voyage.

Lyle Browning


On  Mar 9, 2011, at 5:05 PM, Bill Crews wrote:

> does anyone know the  extent to which any of the rivers in the Shenandoah 
Valley
> were  used for travel or commerce in the Colonial era? Relatedly is anyone
>  familiar with a source -- ideally a primary one -- for what kinds of 
craft  
were
> used on these rivers?
> 
> Bill
> 
>  
> 
> ______________________________________
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