the Potomac aroused the Pennsylvanians to renewed activity. The
Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland
Navigation set forth a programme that was as broad as the
Keystone State itself. Their ultimate object was to capture the
trade of the Great Lakes. "If we turn our view," read the
memorial which the Society presented to the Legislature, "to the
immense territories connected with the Ohio and Mississippi
waters, and bordering on the Great Lakes, it will appear...
that our communication with those vast countries (considering
Fort Pitt as the port of entrance upon them) is as easy and may
be rendered as cheap, as to any other port on the Atlantic tide
waters."

Pennsylvania, lying between Virginia and New York, occupied a
peculiar position. Her Susquehanna Valley stretched
northwest--not
so directly west as did the Potomac on the south and the Mohawk
on the north. This more northerly trend led these early
Pennsylvania promoters to believe that, while they might "only
have a share in the trade of those [the Ohio] waters," they could
absolutely secure for themselves the trade of the Great Lakes,
"taking Presq' Isle [Erie, Pennsylvania] which is within our own
State, as the great mart or place of embarkation."

The plan which the Society proposed involved the improvement of
water and land routes by way of the Delaware to Lake Ontario and
Lake Otsego, and of eight routes by the Susquehanna drainage,
north, northwest, and west. A bill which passed the Legislature
on April 13, 1791, appropriated money for these improvements.
Work was begun immediately on the Schuylkill-Susquehanna Canal,