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One-page, 8 x 10, ALS, ANDREW SMALL writes to ALEXANDER B. MCFARLAND regarding the final 50 miles of construction on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal being stalled due to labor unrest, financial troubles and the challenges constructing the canal at Paw Paw. McFarland was the superintendent of masonry and hydraulic cement for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The construction was in progress at the time this letter was written. Small was a contractor. The transcription includes Small’s misspellings.
Hancock, January 26th, 1839, Small writes, “Your letter of the 25th inst. duly received. I do think it will be well that Mrs. McFarland leave that pleas [place] as it has been so much trubel [trouble] and I doo hoop you will have strength to overcome this afull calamity. It is trou saying that life is like a winter day: some breakfast and no long stay; while others dine and are full fed; the last but supper and goes to bed. If I were in your pleas [place] and you in meine [mine] 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 anything that is in my power I will doo it with pleasure 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 hoe the Babe is and your own health; I hope that Mrs. McFarland and the Boy will exceap [escape].
“I remain yours very truly
“Andrew Small”
SMALL was an immigrant from Perthshire Scotland. He arrived in Baltimore in 1829, and the ship’s manifest lists his occupation as “mason.”
MCFARLAND was also an immigrant from Perthshire Scotland and is best known for his work along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal on natural cement at the Shepherdstown Cement works, beginning in 1829. He was the Superintendent of Masonry and hydraulic cement for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. He had a major role in the discovery of a source of natural cement at Round Top and his work on the Monocacy aqueduct. He was also known for his work as masonry foreman of the U.S. Capitol extension of 1853-58. McFarland’s work was more extensive than what has previously been noted in published literature. It spanned most of the great canal building decades and included work on several of the great American canal systems built in the 19th century.
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River between Washington, DC and Cumberland, Maryland, replacing the Potomac Canal, which shut down completely in 1828. The canal 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.
Toning, folds. A few small fold breaks reinforced with archival tape. Fine integral address leaf with red Hancock postmark and 10-cent manuscript postage.
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