Carbon County: Stone Coal in the Switzerland of America

Carbon, the primary component of an­thracite coal, is also a county in eastern Pennsylvania – for the same reason. The value of anthracite to the burgeoning industrial revolution of the mid­-nineteenth century created in 1843 a new county from the northern fringes of the once­-immense Northampton County. Beginning in the nine­teenth century, an entire county of coal was carved and moved to the center of the American industrial revolution.

The area north of the Blue Ridge mountain of Northamp­ton County was occupied by the Lenni-Lenape Indians until the mid-eighteenth-century, when the notorious Walking Purchase of 1737 gave control of much of eastern Pennsylva­nia to the colonists. The Pur­chase terminated in the Pine Swamps near the Lehigh River in what is now Carbon County (See “A Walk of Injustice” by Peggy Robbins in the summer 1988 edition of Pennsylvania Heritage). White settlers slowly moved into the area. Germans started farming in the Mahon­ing Valley but the area’s north­ern parts were unsuited for agriculture.

Near Bethlehem, the Mora­vians had been taking care of a group of Indian converts, but decided that the Indians would be more comfortable some distance from the grow­ing settlements of the Lehigh Valley. In 1746, the Indians and Moravian missionaries settled near the present site of Le­highton at a place they called Gnadenhutten, or “Tents of Mercy:’ In 1754, the settlement was moved across the river to the future site of Weissport, then called New Gnadenhutten.

Relative peace reigned until the Indian wars of the late 1750s broke out. French agita­tion played on the Indian’s underlying hostility at the white settlers of Pennsylvania who had deprived them of their land. Acts of terror had randomly plagued the north­ern settlements, but the Mora­vians would not return to the safety of Bethlehem and Na­zareth. The warring tribes decided upon a decisive con­frontation that would drive the Moravians from Gnadenhutten and punish the Indians that remained sympathetic to the missionaries.

On the night of November 24, 1755, the Moravian mission house was attacked and burned by Indians allied with the French. The Gnadenhutten massacre, in which eleven died, sent the remaining Euro­peans fleeing south to Bethle­hem and Nazareth; sympathetic Indians either went to Bethlehem or disap­peared into the wilderness. A military unit dispatched to the area to protect property was ambushed and abandoned the mission. Other massacres occurred, and the English realized that only a show of force would quell the violence. Benjamin Franklin was ap­pointed as a colonel to orga­nize the expeditionary force.

Franklin gathered nearly six hundred men and moved north to erect a chain of forts, one of which would be located at Gnadenhutten. The forces arrived at Gnadenhutten in late January 1756 and com­pleted Fort Allen – a “miserable stockade” according to Franklin – in a week. However “contemptible” the structure may have been, it succeeded in discouraging further attacks and secured the frontier. Fort Allen was garrisoned until 1761, but the region remained sparsely settled until after the American Revolution.

Since the area had been tranquil for a few years, white men began returning in the 1770s, among them Benjamin Gilbert who built a mill on Mahoning Creek. However, the American Revolution brought back the danger of Indian raids. On April 25, 1780, a party of eleven Indians, allied with the British, raided the Gilbert homestead and took the family hostage. The Indians continued their as­saults and captured fifteen settlers. For three weeks the prisoners marched to upstate New York where British offi­cers were able to gain freedom for several. Benjamin Gilbert died, but the other captives were eventually released, ending the last Indian raid in eastern Pennsylvania.

The frontier eventually quieted, and settlers were able to return. Retired Deputy Quartermaster General Jacob Weiss settled near the site of the Gnadenhutten massacre to enter the lumber business at a site on the banks of the Le­high River, now Weissport. He was successful and employed a number of the local German farmers. Besides lumber, Weiss was also interested in “stone coal,” and in 1785 and 1787 he sent workers to look for an­thracite, but their search proved fruitless. He made it widely known that he was interested in finding a deposit of stone coal in the hope that someone might locate it for him.

Philip Ginder, who had business dealings with Weiss, operated a grist mill and farm in the Mahoning Valley. Leg­end contends that Ginder was a poor hunter who roamed the rugged mountains searching for game, but social historian George Korson believed Gin­der was actually a rather pros­perous land owner. Regardless of his economic status, Ginder was on Sharp Mountain one day in 1791 when he discov­ered the anthracite outcrop for which Weiss had been searching.

Ginder first took the coal to Joseph Smith, a blacksmith who ignited the fuel after much trial; convinced that he had discovered anthracite, Ginder showed the coal to Weiss. Pleased, Weiss offered to pay Ginder for directions to the outcrop’s location. Ginder wanted no money, but asked Weiss to use his influence to expedite a deed on some land that Ginder had purchased. Weiss agreed, and Ginder gave him directions to the first large outcrop of anthracite coal discovered in Pennsylvania.

Weiss took the coal to hJs brother-in-law Charles Cist, a prominent printer and pub­lisher, and his cousin Michael Hillegas, the first treasurer of the United States. They showed the coal to various scientists and investors. On July 17, 1792, the Lehigh Coal Mine Company (LCMC) was formed and purchased nearly ten thousand acres of land a few miles north of Weissport along the Lehigh River. The property extended fourteen miles west from the river and about four miles north and south, encompassing the present-day sites of Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe), Nesquehoning, Summit Hill, Lansford and Coaldale (which lies in adjacent Schuylkill County).

The Lehigh Coal Mine Company enjoyed little suc­cess. Weiss, acting manager at the mines, constructed a prim­itive road from the coal pit on the top of Sharp Mountain, now Summit Hill, to the Le­high River at Mauch Chunk. Farmers from the Mahoning Valley crossed the mountains in the morning to dig coal for Weiss. The company made a few attempts at arking the coal down the shallow and rocky Lehigh River but the coal that did make it as far as Philadel­phia was unsaleable.

The virtue – and problem­ – of anthracite is its purity. Car­bon County anthracite is nearly ninety-six percent fixed carbon, making it some of the purest coal in the world, but also the most difficult to ignite. It was nearly impossible for the early consumer to burn anthracite in conventional wood stoves. Furthermore, the terrible problems transporting anthracite from the mines to Philadelphia, one hundred miles south, made Pennsylva­nia’s anthracite more expensive than bituminous coal from England and Virginia. Conse­quently, there was little incen­tive for inventors to develop and market an anthracite stove. By 1800 the LCMC had abandoned its operations, occasionally leasing the land to some foolhardy entrepreneur.

One such entrepreneur, less foolhardy than the rest, was Jacob Cist of Wilkes-Barre, the son of Charles Cist and a suc­cessful businessman, scientist and inventor in his own right. Jacob and his partners, Isaac Chapman, Charles Miner and John Robinson, began working the Summit mine as the War of 1812 took hold and caused a fuel shortage in Philadelphia. For fuel, people relied on wood and bituminous, or soft, coal that was imported from Britain, a supply now obvi­ously cut off, and from Vir­ginia, also curtailed because of a British blockade. The vast woodlands of southeast Penn­sylvania were being quickly depleted. Cist noted that, “Already for many miles round this city [Philadelphia] the majestic oaks have disap­peared and the young timber which ought to have been left for our children has been en­croached on and like the des­perate Napoleon we have been compelled to call out the con­scription for 1820.”

Jacob Cist saw the opportu­nity and made it work­ – temporarily. Cist and company delivered coal to Philadelphia on a regular basis through 1815. The road remained poor and the river remained treach­erous, but the venture was profitable until the war ended. With peace came lower fuel prices and the end of Cist’s operation. Although Cist no longer found the Lehigh coal fields profitable, two of his customers were so impressed by the possibilities of anthra­cite that they risked their en­tire fortunes on the stone coal.

Josiah White and Erskine Hazard owned a wire mill on the Schuylkill River north of Philadelphia, and the war’s fuel shortage prompted them to experiment with anthracite for remelting iron. An evening of failure sent the work crew home, but one laborer forgot his coat and returned to find the furnace glowing. He quickly summoned White and Hazard and his co-workers and they spent the night re­melting iron.

White and Hazard wanted more anthracite but when the war ended the supply dwin­dled. To acquire more anthra­cite, they would have to mine it themselves. And they did. White and Hazard realized the potential of hard coal for in­dustrial and domestic uses. They sold their development on the Schuylkill and invested in coal lands on the Lehigh River. In 1818, they leased the LCMC property for one ear of corn yearly as long as they met a production quota. They then convinced the state legislature to provide, essentially, monop­oly rights for the development of the Lehigh River. After a few name changes the enter­prise evolved as the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company (LC&N) in 1822.

White and Hazard immedi­ately set out to construct a good road from the Summit mine to the river. The nine mile road through the steep and rocky terrain, graded with surveying instruments, fea­tured a continuous downward slope. White believed that it was the first road in America and, perhaps, the first in the world to descend a total of eight miles with no intermedi­ate inclines.

Next came the Lehigh. Standing waist deep in the river from April to November, White and his men cleared large rocks from a channel and used the rocks to make small wing dams. This simple im­provement was not sufficient; the river level fell too low for coal transport in the summer.

Along Mauch Chunk Creek near the landing White and his men experimented with a new gate. The lock succeeded and in 1820 the LC&N shipped three hundred and sixty-five tons of anthracite to Philadel­phia, literally flooding the market. In 1824, after an ag­gressive marketing campaign and a ninety-five hundred ton shipment of coal, designed to prove the availability of Lehigh anthracite, the company turned the corner: Lehigh anthracite would be a fuel staple in Philadelphia for the next century.

Increasing demand for coal required the LC&N to expand its works at Mauch Chunk. The wagon road from Summit Hill became a gravity railroad in 1827, over which mules hauled empty coal cars from Mauch Chunk to the mines. On a return trip, over primitive tracks, tons of coal hurtled down the mountain to the Lehigh while the mules ate in the lead car. This rickety, prim­itive transport quickly became a tourist attraction, along with the scenic wilderness of Mauch Chunk, and in 1829, the LC&N began charging twenty-five cents a ride for Mauch Chunk residents and fifty cents for tourists. LC&N employees rode free. Among the visitors who rode the grav­ity railroad were John James Audubon, who sketched a few birds at the Pine Swamps for his celebrated folio, and Anne Royall, the noted travel writer.

Increasing demand for coal prompted the LC&N to build an ascending navigation. The LC&N began work in 1827 and completed a canal from the Nesquehoning Creek to Eas­ton, forty-six miles away, in 1829. It was not an uninter­rupted canal; where dams made the Lehigh deep and slow, canal boats ran on the river itself.

To service its mines, the LC&N created towns. Summit Hill slowly formed around the original mine and the LC&N organized Nesquehoning in 1831. The towns were LC&N creations, laid out and closely controlled by the company, but with significant differences in their developments. The com­pany completely owned Sum­mit Hill; residents and businesses leased property from the LC&N. In Nes­quehoning the company sold lots for businesses and resi­dences. In both towns, the LC&N provided lots free of charge for churches and schools.

Both Summit Hill and Nes­quehoning expanded during the 1830s and 1840s, but in contrasting ways. The editor of the Mauch Chunk newspaper praised the “neat cluster of white buildings” in Nes­quehoning in 1832 but four years later condemned the small one-story shacks in Summit Hill as “hardly fit for human habitation.” It took another decade for the company to erect acceptable two­-story houses in Summit Hill.

The legislation which cre­ated the LC&N required the company to continue its canal north of Mauch Chunk to Stoddartsville and create an Upper Division. As the com­pany began work on the Up­per Division it encountered a new problem: competition. The LC&N had become accus­tomed to extremely difficult terrain and financial uncertainty, but competition was unprecedented. The Beaver Meadow Railroad (BMRR) obtained legislative permission to construct a railroad parallel­ing the Upper Division m order to open the coal fields of the northern Lehigh Valley.

When both LC&N and BMRR crews began work in the valley, violence flared, bringing both parties into court. The LC&N presented its charter, which granted the company almost monopoly rights in the valley, and thereby won the first access to any construction site along the river, much to the dismay of the BMRR. The BMRR was defeated but not destroyed. It abandoned its original plans of building a railroad to Allen­town and settled for a shorter route stopping at Parryville about ten miles south of Mauch Chunk where its coal was transferred into LC&N canal boats.

More new settlements arose to service the deep mines, including Ashton and Storm Hill. The LC&N moved its offices to the area in 1871 and Ashton and Storm Hill merged to form Lansford five years later.

In the midst of the burgeon­ing industrial expansion and technological innovation, the county of Carbon was established, but not without contro­versy. Residents of this upper part of Northampton County had been agitating for a separate county since 1829 but politics and local rivalry intervened.

The residents of Lehighton, a prosperous agricultural mar­ket community four miles south of Mauch Chunk, thought their town was better suited for the county seat, because it had developed into an attractive town. More im­portantly, however, the south­ern agricultural interests in the area wanted the county seat in their territory, rather than in Mauch Chunk, which was controlled by influential industrial interests. The Lehighton partisans argued that Mauch Chunk held more economic power than the diffuse agricultural region and that the seat of political power should be separate. Good arguments notwithstanding, Lehighton lost and Mauch Chunk became the county seat.

Perhaps the most important individual behind the creation of Carbon County was Asa Packer, Mauch Chunk Town­ship’s state representative from 1841 to 1843. Packer would also prove to be the LC&:N’s most successful rival.

Asa Packer moved to Mauch Chunk from Mystic, Connecticut, where he was born in 1805 to an unsuccessful businessman. Packer left home and worked as a carpenter and farmer in northern Pennsylva­nia for eleven years, during which he married Sarah Minerva Blakeslee. In 1833, Packer moved to Mauch Chunk to take advantage of the economic explosion ignited by the LC&N. Packer put his carpentry skill to work build­ing canal boats. A successful canal boat captain, he opened a canal boat construction yard. He then expanded the opera­tion by taking contracts on both the Lehigh and Schuylkill canals by placing his brother Robert in charge of the Potts­ville boatyard. Packer also entered the retail business with his brother-in-law in Mauch Chunk.

Packer quickly became wealthy but he could not rest. In 1838, he became contractor at the LC&N’s Room Run mine and he also worked on the construction of the Upper Division. Disillusioned by the LC&N’s contentment with its canal system, Packer envisioned the potential in rail­roads and became involved with the nascent Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill and Susque­hanna Railroad in 1846. The investors did little during the greater part of the five year construction charter, and as the charter was about to expire in 1851, Packer made his move.

In a dangerous financial maneuver, Asa Packer obtained control of the railroad and saved the charter by grad­ing a small section the right-of-way. Seventeen days before the charter was to expire Packer became a member of the board of managers and six months later had purchased nearly all of the stock. With his entire fortune on the line, Packer enticed Robert Sayre away from his position as superintendent of railroad operations with the LC&N and made him chief engineer of the new railroad. Large scale con­struction began in 1852.

The line, later called the Lehigh Valley Railroad (LVRR) would run from Easton to Mauch Chunk, but construc­tion would not be easy. The LC&N intervened, geology interfered, inflation soared and cholera raged. Nonetheless, the first LVRR locomotive entered Mauch Chunk in Sep­tember 1855, breaking LC&N control of the upper Lehigh Valley. The LVRR accomplished what the BMRR could not; it had built a railroad to compete with the canal. In 1864 the LVRR acquired the BMRR, as well as its coal holdings.

In addition to amassing a fortune, Packer became politi­cally prominent. He served in Washington as representative; he was placed in nomination for president as a favorite son candidate from Pennsylvania; lost the governorship of Penn­sylvania by only five thousand votes and served as judge. He will be best remembered for the LVRR, the founding of Lehigh University and for his opulent mansion which re­mains intact in Mauch Chunk. In 1860, Packer began con­struction of the mansion on the hill overlooking the busi­ness district of Mauch Chunk. The mansion also overlooked the former residence of Josiah White, founder of the LC&N, and symbolically proclaimed Packer’s dominance of Mauch Chunk.

In the meantime, the LVRR and the LC&N engaged in intense competition, but in 1862 the LC&N suffered a blow which altered its destiny. On June 4-5, the Lehigh River roared through the valley in what has been remembered as the Freshet of 1862. Four peo­ple died in Mauch Chunk and fifty buildings were carried away as the water rose thirty feet above the normal height of the river. The flood destroyed the Upper Division of the Lehigh Canal when the force of the water broke open a large timber basin sending logs and large-cut timber crashing down the river breaking dams and smashing locks. The Lower Division was heavily damaged, but could be re­paired. The LVRR also sus­tained great damage, but the railroad was easier to rebuild than the canal.

The LC&N once again accepted great debt in order to rebuild the canal, but the Up­per Division would be re­placed by a railroad. The Company had constructed the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad from White Haven to Wilkes-Barre in 1848, and by 1867 extended it south to Mauch Chunk and then to Easton to replace the Upper Division and supplement the Lower Division. The LC&N also built the Nesquehoning Valley Railroad in 1871 which obviated the Switchback Rail­road. The Nesquehoning Val­ley Railroad connected with the Panther Valley coal fields by a tunnel through Hauto Mountain. Instead of sending the coal by gravity-railroad to Mauch Chunk, the coal could now be loaded directly onto coal cars near the mine then either transferred to canal boats or remain on railroad cars for the journey to market. The complicated switchback mechanism from Summit Hill into Lansford was disassem­bled as were the original coal schutes at Mount Pisgah in Mauch Chunk. The gravity­-railroad, still inappropriately called the Switchback, re­mained as a tourist attraction until the 1930s.

Although the LC&N had rebuilt and modernized its transportation network, seri­ous financial problems devel­oped, accompanied by a dramatic change in the anthra­cite transportation industry.

In 1869, the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad purchased the Morris and Essex Railroad of New Jersey and created a route from the Lackawanna Valley coal fields to the New York harbor. No other anthracite railroad had a direct uninterrupted route from the coal regions to New York but now they all needed one. In 1873, the Cen­tral Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) leased all of the LC&N operations, leaving the LC&N as a holding company and solving the LC&N’s debt. The CNJ had a route from Easton to New York and now gained an extension into the coal land. The Central Railroad also suffered a financial embarrass­ment and went into receiver­ship. The LC&N then regained control of the canal and coal lands, but the CNJ continued to lease the railroad. The LVRR also built a through route to New York and cut-throat com­petition began.

During the following thirty years the old guard of Carbon County moved or passed away, creating a power vac­uum that ended Mauch Chunk’s reign as a central player in the American indus­trial revolution.

Both the LC&N and LVRR had always been officially headquartered in Philadelphia but had maintained opera­tional headquarters in Mauch Chunk. In 1857 Robert Sayre, Chief Engineer and General Superintendent of the LVRR, moved its operational head­quarters to South Bethlehem. The move was necessary for two reasons: Mauch Chunk was too small for industrial expansion and Bethlehem was better suited, geographically, as a junction for Philadelphia and New York rail traffic. E.P. Wilbur, Asa Packer’s secretary and nephew, and Garrett Lin­derman Packer, Asa’s son-in­-law, also moved to South Bethlehem. Packer’s sons, Robert and Harry, did not join the move to South Bethlehem; both were incompetent man­agers and neither was placed in a position of power. Robert and Harry died young, each within a few years of Asa’s death in 1879.

The intense competition among the anthracite railroads drove the LVRR to near bankruptcy by the late 1890s when financier J.P. Morgan gained control of the railroad. The LVRR continued to be man­aged by New York interests until it was absorbed by CON­RAIL in 1976.

Josiah White died in 1850 and Erskine Hazard passed away in 1865. Control of the LC&N passed to Hazard’s relatives, the Cox family, but soon they grew tired of the corporate life and gave up control to New York interests, led by Edward Clark of the Singer Sewing Machine em­pire. The LC&N remained a major coal producer through the nineteenth century but its role as a navigation company declined as the importance of the canal declined.

During the last decades of the nineteenth century Mauch Chunk lost much of its charac­ter as an industrial center and became largely a tourist town. Its hotels and resorts, such as Flagstaff, its scenery, including Glen Onoko Falls and the nearby coal mines, and the gravity-railroad ride continued to attract visitors from America and abroad. William Cullen Bryant’s Picturesque America called Mauch Chunk “truly the most picturesque town in America,” which became known as the “Switzerland of America” because of its moun­tainous terrain.

The United Mine Workers Association grew strong dur­ing the first decades of the twentieth century, after its victory in the 1902 coal strike, and anthracite production soared, reaching a peak in the early 1920s. But anthracite was losing ground in market share to other fuels such as oil. The strike of 1925 sounded the death knell for the anthracite industry. For one hundred and seventy days the anthracite mines were silent. When the strike ended many customers had abandoned anthracite.

The LC&N continued to mine coal and lose market share into the 1950s. In 1954 the LC&N ended mining oper­ations in the Panther Valley. Independent operators continued deep mining until 1960 and the miners themselves kept one deep mine open in Lansford, until state regula­tions closed the mine in 1973. Strip mining kept the industry alive until the Bethlehem Steel Company purchased the land in 1974, which still continues limited strip mining.

While the northern parts of the county declined the south­ern part flourished. In 1898, the New Jersey Zinc Company decided to consolidate its operation and build one large plant, selecting a site on the Lehigh River about fifteen miles south of Mauch Chunk for a new zinc smelting plant. The site offered sufficient water and easy access to the large quantities of anthracite needed for the smelting process.

The company named the new town Palmerton after its president Stephen Palmer, and planned its every aspect. It provided a hospital, schools and well built homes in an attractive setting. A new eco­nomic center had been created in Carbon County, and Palmer­ton would thrive into the 1960s. The New Jersey Zinc plant would become one of the largest zinc smelters in the country – but it would also cause great environmental damage, as local vegetation was destroyed by its emis­sions, creating a barren land­scape around the town. During the 1960s and 1970s the zinc market declined and the plant was taken over by Gulf and Western. It is, however, still operated on a reduced scale by an independent company headquartered in Palmerton.

The northern fringe of the county also developed a new industry during the twentieth century, skiing. In the 1820s the LC&N purchased a large amount of timber land north of Mauch Chunk to provide wood for boat construction. During the 1940s the Company built a resort called Split Rock on Lake Harmony. LC&N president Robert V. White was a skiing enthusiast who saw the potential of the sport in Pennsylvania and introduced it to the resort at Split Rock and nearby Big Boulder.

The construction of the Northeast extension of the Pennsylvania turnpike during the late 1950s helped the county survive. Many unem­ployed miners worked on turnpike construction. The turnpike, in turn, made it feasible for the unemployed to find work in the Lehigh Valley and still live in Carbon County. The turnpike also made it easier for tourists to take advantage of the Poconos.

During the 1950s Mauch Chunk had reached the depths of economic depression. In 1954 local newspaper editor Joseph Boyle proposed a scheme to bring industry back to the area. If residents and visitors would just contribute a nickel a day to a central fund the town would be able to raise enough money for some type of economic expansion. The effort attracted media coverage in Philadelphia and the widow of recently de­ceased Olympic hero Jim Thorpe happened to hear about it. She contacted Boyle. Thorpe was destitute when he died and his widow was un­able to bury him in the manner she thought appropriate to his status as a great athlete. A deal was struck and the townspeo­ple voted approval. Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk would merge as a new town to be called Jim Thorpe. Thorpe, who never set foot in the town, would be buried there under a red granite tomb. The town would get much needed publicity and become a tourist attraction again.

It worked, but it took twenty-five years. Only during the 1980s has Mauch Chunk­ – now Jim Thorpe – become a significant tourist attraction again. The Asa Packer man­sion has been welcoming tour­ists since 1964, but little use was made of the traditional tourist advantages of the area. Now there are bed and break­fasts, boutiques, white water rafting and more.

As Carbon County moves into the 1990s, its future looks bright. The increase in real estate values in the Lehigh Valley has prompted many businesses and individuals to investigate the lower cost of locating in Carbon County. The area has become attractive to people from New York and Philadelphia for weekend and retirement homes. Carbon County is now being chal­lenged to successfully manage a new wave of prosperity.

For Further Reading

Knies, Michael. “Industry, Enter­prise, Wealth, and Taste: The Development of Mauch Chunk, PA., 1791-1831.” Proceedings of the Canal History and Technol­ogy Symposium. Easton: The Center for Canal History and Technology, 1985.

Korson, George. Black Rock: Mining Folklore of the Pennsyl­vania Dutch. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1960.

Matthews, Alfred and Austin Hungerford. History of Lehigh and Carbon Counties, Pennsyl­vania. Philadelphia: N.P., 1884.

Parton, W. Julian. The Death of a Great Company: Reflections on the Decline and Fall of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. Easton: Center for Canal History and Technology, 1986.

Powell, H. Benjamin. Philadel­phia’s First Fuel Crisis: Jacob Cist and the Developing Mar­ket for Pennsylvania Anthra­cite. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1978.

White, Josiah. Josiah White’s History Given by Himself. Philadelphia: N.P., 1909.

The author wishes to thank the following individuals for their help and assistance during the preparation of this article: Lance E. Metz, director of the Canal Museum; John Gunsser, director, Asa Packer Mansion; Bill Rich­ards, local historian; and photog­rapher George Harvan.

Michael J. Knies, a native of Lansford, Carbon County, has recently been appointed manager of collections for the Canal Museum in Easton. He received his bachelor of arts degree from the Pennsylvania State University. In 1983, he served as research histo­rian for Jim Thorpe’s Main Street Program, and the following year um decorative arts bibliographer for the Bibliography of American Studies conducted by Columbia University. He is the author of an article entitled “Industry, Enter­prise, Wealth and Taste: The Development of Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, 1791-1831,” which appeared in Proceedings of the Canal History and Technology Symposium, published in 1985 by the Center for Canal History and Technology, Easton.