Link to the World

Artist rendering of Enslaved workers

National Park Service, Harpers Ferry Center image

While the essentials of life could be had from the creeks, fields, gardens, and forests of the Washington's land, true economic prosperity depended on the plantation's link to the world: the Potomac River.

A boat landing for the plantation was believed to have been located somewhere near the Potomac River beach area. Several times a year, ships from England would anchor in the river channel.

The ship's crew placed the cargo onto small boats that were ferried to the landing. The enslaved and others unloaded the chinaware, spices, linen, wines, silver, and other fine products that were not for their own consumption. These luxury goods allowed the plantation owners to aspire to be equal to their contemporaries in England.

In return, the small boats would carry the Washington's hogsheads of tobacco and other cash crops to the ships for the continual process of trade between the colonies and European markets.