Naturalist and artist John James Audubon visited Rockport in 1829 and hiked the surrounding forests sketching native birds. He wrote in his journal that one full third of trees had already been culled, turned into boards, and floated as far as Philadelphia, and he predicted that in a century the noble forests around would exist no more. In the 19th century, at least in areas close to towns and mills along the Lehigh, that vision of deforestation temporarily came true. Where Rockport's river wharves once stood, tons of coal poured from railroad cars and thundered down wooden chutes into canal boats waiting to float down the Lehigh Canal. Inclined planes topped with noisy steam engines, trestle bridges, a railroad tunnel, and one of only two water-powered coal breakers in the region, powered by a 25-foot overshot waterwheel, imposed an industrial complexion over the small lumber camp that existed here in the 1820s.