Industry
6
Once owned by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, the Lehigh River was the only privately owned river in the United States. In 1818 the Pennsylvania Legislature gave the company the right to make the river navigable for the transportation of coal. The company’s leaders, Josiah White and Erskine Hazard, helped develop a system of dams, bear trap locks, and canals to aid in the transportation of coal. The industrial revolution was fueled by the hundreds of thousands of tons of coal and other raw materials transported down the river to Philadelphia.
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Walnutport, Pennsylvania · United States
