1839 USA Maryland letter McFarlan Superintendent Chesapeake Ohio Canal

Letter from Alexander Small in Hancock MD to Alexander McFarlan in Cumberland MD. McFarlan was the  Superintendent of Masonry and hydraulic cement for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, whose construction was in progress at that time. Small was a contractor.

The canal reached Hancock, Maryland, in 1839. Work on the final 50 miles was stalled by labor unrest, financial troubles and the challenges constructing the tunnel at Paw Paw.

Addressed to 

Alexander B McFarland Esq

Superintendent of Masonry

Chs & Ohio Canal

Cumberland MD

Postmarked in red  HANCOCK JAN 2- MD , handwritten 10 postal rate

Hancock January 26^th 1839

Dear Sir,

Your letter of the 25^th inst. duly received. I do think it will be well that Mrs McFarland leave that pleas as it has bean the cause of so much trubel and I doo hopp you will have strength to overcome this afull calamity. It is a trou saying that life is like a winter day: some breakfast and no longer stay: while others dine and are full fed: the last but supper and goes to bed,. If I were in your pleas and you in meine I would expect you to doo all in your power for me as it is I thinks that I am in duty bound to you if you want any thing that is in my power I will doo it with pleasre but I wish no thanks for it for I may want the same of you again

Mr. Anderson will write  we are all in good health ---you did not say if you had heard from your friends in Washington. Pleas write me in a day or two and let me know how the Babe is and your own health: I hope that Mrs McFarland and the Boy will exceap.

I remain yours very truly

Andw Small

Alexander B. McFarlan (1796–1866), an immigrant from Moulin, Perthshire, Scotland, is best known today for his work along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal on natural cement at the Shepherdstown Cement works beginning in 1829, his role in the 1837 discovery of a source of natural cement at Round Top, and his work on the Monocacy aqueduct. He is also known for his work as masonry foreman of the U.S. Capitol extension of 1853–58. McFarlan’s work was more extensive than what has previously been noted in the published literature, spanning most of the great canal-building decades, and including work on a number of the great American canal systems built in the nineteenth century.

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The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River between Washington, D.C. and Cumberland, Maryland. It replaced the Potomac Canal, which shut down completely in 1828, and could operate during months in which the water level was too low for the former canal. The canal's principal cargo was coal from the Allegheny Mountains.

Construction began in 1828 on the 184.5-mile canal and ended in 1850 with the completion of a 50-mile stretch to Cumberland, although the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had already reached Cumberland in 1842. The canal had an elevation change of 605 feet which required 74 canal locks, 11 aqueducts to cross major streams, more than 240 culverts to cross smaller streams, and the 3,118 ft Paw Paw Tunnel.

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