Auto Grade 9, Beckett Encapsulated. Offered is a George Washington Signed 1787 Document for The Potomac Company. In 1787, George Washington served as the first president of the Potomac Company (also spelled "Patowmack," as on the offered document, or "Potowmack"), a visionary interstate project he helped charter in 1785.

The company’s ambitious goal was to improve navigation on the Potomac River by clearing obstacles, building skirting canals around the falls (especially the difficult Great Falls), and creating a commercial waterway that would connect eastern ports with the western territories and the Ohio River. Washington invested his own money, actively oversaw construction, approved payrolls for workers, and regularly visited the sites.

The project was not only a business venture for Washington — it was a major step toward national unity. The interstate cooperation required between Virginia and Maryland to create the company directly led to the Mount Vernon Conference (1785), the Annapolis Convention (1786), and ultimately helped pave the way for the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. Though the full canal system took years to complete (finishing in 1802, after Washington’s death), the Potomac Company represented one of Washington’s most important postwar efforts to strengthen the young nation through infrastructure and commerce.

The document is also signed by other officers of the Potomac Company, John Fitzgerald and George Gilpin. Gilpin was actually one of the pallbearers at Washington's funeral.

Also included is a small elegantly framed reproduction of Washington's letter accepting his role as the first President of the United States.