relative to the projected Chesapeake and Ohio, and Ohio and Lake Erie Canals.[1] Though we find Mr. Schriver a United States Associate Civil Engineer in 1826,[2] he seems to have made his explorations "to satisfy himself and a few friends."[3] Since the day of Washington's explorations in 1784 it was generally understood that the most practicable route for a road or canal from the Potomac to an Ohio tributary would follow the portage route outlined by Washington from the Potomac at the mouth of Savage River to the Cheat River. But the emphasis given by Washington to this portage was not based wholly on utilitarian motives. He desired his route to keep within the bounds of Virginia and Maryland—the possessors of the Potomac—for any more northerly course would carry the route into Pennsylvania. Washington, however, was searching for waterways which could be made navigable; Schriver, a generation later, sought only for streams which could furnish sufficient water for a
