Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 13).djvu/119

 The rail road company was not in great need of a national subscription, though dark days were at hand. A perusal of the reports of President Thomas, the first of which was made October 1, 1827, will cause the reader to marvel "that the formidable obstacles almost daily encountered did not crush the energies of the Company, and induce them to abandon the work" An unforeseen difficulty in the shape of an immense cut near Baltimore called for an expenditure of nearly a quarter of a million. And it soon developed that the Canal Company, which had deprived the rail road of the government's aid was yet to strike a harder blow.

By its charter the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company had secured a right of way for a canal on the Maryland bank of the Potomac from Washington to Cumberland. By its surveys the rail road was compelled to gain the Potomac at the "Point of Rocks," twelve miles below Harper's Ferry, and follow the river to that point. Otherwise a tunnel would have to be built under the mountain spurs—a financially