It was discovered on 4 February 1908, by American astronomer Joel Metcalf at the Taunton Observatory (803) in Massachusetts, United States.
[1][4] It is, however, not a member of the Hilda family but a non-family asteroid of the main belt's background population when applying the Hierarchical Clustering Method to its proper orbital elements.
[1] This minor planet was named after the U.S. Potomac River in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, on which Washington, D.C. is located.
Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of 11.40 and 11.41 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.22 and 0.24 magnitude, respectively (U=2/3).
[6][7][8] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link adopts the results obtained by IRAS, that is, an albedo of 0.0439 and a diameter of 71.82 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 9.73.