The Potomac Company had the charter-stated goal of linking the East Coast with the Old Northwest (i.e. the Ohio Country) by building a canal up through a water gap through the Allegheny Front into the nearer frontiers connecting to the headwaters of either the Ohio River tributaries, the Cheat or Monongahela Rivers. It had an early and more immediate goal of improving the navigability of the Potomac River, by building canals and navigations around a succession of blocking rapids or falls of the lower and middle Potomac River. In this latter goal, it succeeded.