Funded in part by the Mary K. Bowman Fund for Historical and Fine Arts administered by the Community Foundation of Washington County MD, Inc., and the Riggs-Conard Trust Fund.
Although improvements and new businesses were appearing in Washington County as the canal began to become an important transportation route to the region, the second half of the 1840s was a time of slow growth for the canal and businesses associated with it due to three floods and continual difficulties in completing the canal to Cumberland.
The novelty of war, unknown in the United States since 1815, and the improved communication of the telegraph and rapid transit of steam boats and trains combined with the cheap and abundant newspapers made the war with Mexico a public sensation.
