WILLIAMSPORT, MD.—Williamsport is a small town on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal abutting the Potomac River across from West Virginia. Last year on the centennial of his birth, I wrote an item on the late Maryland Congressman Gilbert Gude in which I spoke of his book, Small Town Destiny, which covers communities along the upper reaches of the Potomac, one of which is Williamsport.
The town was founded in 1787 by General Otho Holland Williams of Revolutionary War fame. Upon arriving here, one is taken by the broad width of the streets. This town was not laid out for horse-and-buggy traffic, but rather for grand urban events. To understand why, one must look at the date of foundation.
In 1787 our young nation was laying plans for the establishment of a new capital city that especially would make an impression on foreign visitors. General Williams hoped that his new town would be selected to be the capital, thus he planned the wide streets to convince the selection committee that it would be an ideal choice.
Additionally, the site was beyond Great Falls and the rocky stretch of the Potomac, thus making it not subject to naval attack by hostile powers. Security was strategically important to Williams, who had experienced extensive combat during the War of Independence. He died in 1794 at the age of 45 and his town was overlooked in the selection process for the new capital, but his broad avenues remain over two centuries later.
The rocks in the Potomac had a more lasting impact in another way in that their presence led to the building of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal from Georgetown to Cumberland, Maryland, thereby opening the “West” for commercial activity with what had become the new capital, Washington. The canal played an important part in the early days of westward expansion from its initial construction in 1828 and opening in 1831, through its completion in 1850, until trade on it ceased in 1924.
Thereafter, it sat until the 1950s, when the late Maryland Senator J Glenn Beall proposed converting it to a scenic roadway akin to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Vociferous opposition ensued, leading to his plan never materializing. Justice William O. Douglas of the Supreme Court and a large group of other outdoor enthusiasts led the fight against the parkway, most notably by staging his famous 1954 hike up the length of the canal.
Thereafter, support for saving the canal intensified and in 1966 Gilbert Gude was elected to Congress. Preserving the canal was one of his top legislative priorities. The bill that he introduced led to the 1971 passage of the law establishing the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historic Park, now headquartered here in Williamsport. A comprehensive museum displaying the canal’s course affords visitors the opportunity to experience the totality of the canal’s significance in American history. The stone Town Hall, a stately edifice, also provides similar displays of the region’s history.
Williamsport is as impressive for the cleanliness of its streetscapes as it is for their breadth. The growth of the town has been eclipsed by that of neighboring Hagerstown less than 10 miles away. As a result, the quality of life of Williamsport has not been altered by so-called “urban renewal” which often has destroyed the cultural fabric of cities and towns across America.
In this milieu one can understand and appreciate what Williamsport has been in the making of Western Maryland history over the last 237 years. Walking along the canal’s towpath, one experiences a standstill in which the past is conjoined with the present as a jogger runs by, soon followed by a family pushing toddlers in a double stroller.
General Williams’s vision for his town did not come to fruition as he envisioned, but happily for our time its development and progress have been fortuitous in other ways.
