1883.] History of Anthracite Coal in Nature and Art. 5 
White and Hazard procured a new supply from the head-waters 
of the Schuylkill, paying forty dollars a ton delivered in wagons 
at their works. Believing they could supply the needs at a 
cheaper rate by making the Schuylkill navigable, they applied to 
the Legislature for the privilege. But through the ignorant mis- 
representations of the member from Schuylkill county, who as- 
sured the Legislature that “ the black stone would not burn,” they 
were unsuccessful. They were not the men to be thus thwarted, 
and we find them soon active in organizing an association for the 
improvement of the Schuylkill, which resulted in the present 
Schuylkill Navigation Company, incorporated in 1815. 
Having failed to obtain coal from the Schuyikill region, either 
by law for the improvement of the river or afterwards from the 
Navigation Company, White and Hazard turned their attention to 
the Lehigh region. Coal had been discovered on the Lehigh as 
early as 1792 and a Lehigh coal company had been formed, but 
without a charter, which had sent a small quantity to Philadel- 
phia, but owing to the difficulties of navigation it early abandoned 
the business. Some of the coal it is said, was tried under the 
boiler of the engine at Centre Square, in the first Philadelphia 
water works, but only served to put the fire out, and the remainder 
was broken up and spread on the walks as gravel. 
Josiah White visited the Lehigh region in 1817, and returned 
home favorably impressed with the practicability of improving the 
river and mining coal. In company with his co-partners he ob- 
tained a lease of the coal company’s lands for an ear of corn a 
year, if demanded ; obtained a charter for the improvement of the 
Lehigh, and soon in person sat about leveling it from Stoddarts- 
ville to Easton upon the ice, with the only leveling instrument to 
be found in Philadelphia. They at first constructed a turnpike 
road descending 1000 feet in the eight miles from the mines to 
the river. The road was superseded by the gravity railroad in 
1827. Josiah White, in the construction of the dams and walls 
_ labored with untiring assiduity, dressed oftentimes in a red flannel 
shirt, roundabout coat, cap and strong shoes with a hole cut in 
Uie toe, to let out the water. “In the summer I was,” says he, 
“as much in the water as out of it for three seasons and slept for 
the first two without a bed, in the same manner as the work- 
men.” 
In 1820, they sent the first anthracite to market by their arti- 
