On March 18, 1783 Archibald Govan sends two letters enclosed to a friend in New York to forward to Virginia "by the safest, spediest conveyance. There is probally now a post direct from New York through the Continent." In these days ships approached George Town by way of the Western Channel, as it was called, on the far side of Analostan Island, where the depth of the water was from twenty-seven to thirty-three feet--deep enough to admit the passage of an "Indiaman." George Washington Parke Custis, the owner of Arlington, was much disturbed when a causeway was built across from the island to the Virginia shore, and prophesied the filling of the channel and the end of George Town as a port. So up the creek to these mills for their produce, and up the great river to its wharves, piled high with hogsheads of tobacco came these ships and many more of which we have not the names: The _Potomack Planter_, Captain James Buchanan, for London. The brig _Brothers_. The schooner _Betsey_, bringing rum, coffee, and chocolate. The ships _Ritson_ and _Felicity_. The sloops, _Lydia_ and _Betsey_, plying between George Town and New York. These ships from the North were laden with whale oil to be used for the lamps which, in 1810, were placed on the streets to "enable the citizens to go safely to and from evening service." The _Columbia_ from Martinique, and the ship _Lydia_, Lemuel Toby, master, for London, which on September 6, 1792 had this advertisement in _The George Town Weekly Ledger_: Will sail in twelve or fifteen days: such as may be desirous of taking passage in said ship may depend on being genteelly accommodated. For further particulars apply to Col. Wm. Deakins, or the Captain on Board. Out beyond the northern limits of the Town, just opposite where Mount Alto Hospital now stands, high on a hill which has been dug away, stood in those days a tremendous oak tree which was used by the pilots coming up the river to guide them on their way. For a hundred years it stood, known as Sailors' Oak, but like so many other things, has had to go in the interest of Progress. Chapter III _The Taverns, Shops, and Schools_ With ships arriving and departing and the land travel passing from North to South and back again, besides the country gentlemen coming to town to sell their crops and tend to other business, there was need for many taverns, and plenty of them there were in George Town. According to Mr. O. W. Holmes of the National Archives who has recently written a fine article on the Colonial Taverns of Georgetown for the Columbia Historical Society, which he read before the Society on January 16, 1951, the earliest tavern of which there is record was kept by Joseph Belt who was granted a license by the newly created Frederick County Court in August, 1751 "to keep a Public House of Entertainment at the Mouth of Rock Creek."