It would seem from Elkanah Watson's account that, when these subscription books were opened for signatures of prospective stockholders, there were absolutely no subscribers forthcoming. "They had been opened three days by the committee," he wrote from New York where he happened to be in April (?), "at the old coffee-house, and not a share was subscribed. I considered the cause hopeless--called on my friend (I think it was) James Watson, Esq., and induced him, with much pursuasion, to subscribe twenty [?] shares; from that moment the subscriptions went on briskly. On my arrival in Albany, the commissioners had kept the books open several days, at Lewis's old tavern, in State street, and no mortal had yet signed to exceed _two shares_. I immediately subscribed seven in each company...." Watson also wrote to Schuyler of the low state of affairs; the latter ordered him to subscribe to ten shares in Schuyler's name.[8] A committee appointed by the directors of the Western Company, August 14, 1792, consisting of Philip Schuyler, Goldsbrow Bangar, and Elkanah Watson, to examine the Mohawk from Fort Schuyler (Rome) to Schenectady, reported in the following September. Accompanied by the surveyor Moses De Witt, and Mr. Lightall, a carpenter, and a Mr. Nesbit, the committee left Schenectady August 21 in a batteau, and reached Fort Schuyler on the twenty-ninth. Their itinerary gives us a picture of the old river, and preserves valuable facts for local historians.[9] The first day's journey was six and one-half miles to John Mabey's, half a mile above Jacobus Swart's. Six rapids were passed, over which the water ran, on the average, a foot and a half deep--the river then having the least water running "within the memory of the eldest person." The night of the twenty-second was spent at John Fonda's, seventeen and three-fourths miles up the river; in this distance were five sharp rapids and many small rapids with shallow water, as at Sir William Johnson's "first settlement," eight and one-half miles above Mabey's. The night of the twenty-third was spent at Mr. Nellis's, nineteen and three-fourths miles on; one mile above Fonda's was "Caughnawaga rift, deep, incommoded with large rocks;" nine miles onward, lay Kettar's rapid, and two and a half miles on was Colonel John Fry's. A journey of four miles the next day brought the examiners to Fort Hendrick, four and a half miles below Little Falls. "From the landing at the foot [of Little Falls], to the landing at the head of the Falls, is about three-quarters of a mile, the height thirty-nine feet two inches, the ground stony, rocky and rough." It will be seen that this was not the old-time portage over which boats were drawn on sleds. Two days were spent examining this strategic fall. Proceeding on the twenty-seventh, Fort Schuyler, about fifty miles distant, was reached on the twenty-ninth. The navigation throughout this distance was good with but two rapids, Orendorff's and Wolf's.