Workers From All Nations

Workers From All Nations. . , "The White Haven Lock is twenty three feet high, more than three times the usual height. It is entirely satisfactory. It takes two minutes to fill and two to empty. We can pass a boat in three minutes as I had promised myself, about as quick as with a lock of five feet lift using the old plan. Folks are all pleased with it." , , Josiah White, Mauch Chunk, 1836 , Here lie the remains of the Lehigh Canal’s Lock 28 and Dam 19. High lift locks like this one lowered boats filled with over a hundred tons of coal as much as 30 feet. With higher locks and wider, deeper channels, the Lehigh Canal matched the larger than life vision of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company's managers Josiah White and Erskine Hazard. The Canal enabled boats to carry anthracite coal to markets in Philadelphia and New York. , To construct these massive structures, as well as the canal's channel, dams and locktender's houses, the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company employed hundreds of workers. Josiah White wrote that laborers came "from all nations" with large contingents from Germany, Ireland, Wales and Scotland. , White often worked alongside his men and learned first hand of the need for "strong shoes with holes cut in the toe to let out the water." An innovator not easily deterred, White also admitted, "I didn't know anything about blasting nor did they (workers). But we were lucky; as I recollect we lost only two men."