Its first trustees were: George Gilpin, Albert Russell, Josiah Clapham, Richard Bland Lee, Leven Powell and Samuel Love.

Although the canal which ultimately opened up the Ohio River Valley for development was a lifelong dream of George Washington, the President died two years before completion of this first section.

In 1821 a joint committee appointed by the Virginia and Maryland legislatures recommended that its charter be revoked, though instead it merged into the newly organized Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company in 1828.

In 1858, the government filed a lawsuit to shut the mills, which shareholders and the State of Virginia contested for four decades, by which time the Civil War had ended and the manufacturing enterprise long closed.

Dickey's Tavern, constructed c. 1797, claimed to have hosted every U.S. President from George Washington to Theodore Roosevelt and was the last remaining building in Matildaville before a fire destroyed it in 1950.