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| Joyce's horseradish root growing in her yard. What makes growing horseradish so easy is by harvesting it in late winter or early spring, and shaving off the outer peel of the root, you get to eat the inside of the root but you can plant the outside peelings that will grow all summer and become next spring's root to eat! |
The "Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company," which dug coal from Carbon County, was known over the world for having the hardest coal. The harder the coal, the more intense heat it could produce. The first coal was discovered here in 1792. By 1818, a man named Josiah White developed a 9-mile road from the coal quarry to the Lehigh River. Eventually building one of the first railroads in North America. He also used the river to float barges down the river to Philadelphia and New York City.
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| Here is a view of the Lehigh River between the towns of Jim Thorpe and Lehighton below. The trail is called the canal "towpath" because mules walked it pulled the canal boats with a rope. The canal is out of view on the right. This is the area known as "Lock #4" of the Lehigh Canal. Said to be the best and longest working canal in the country. |
Our area once produced several millionaires. However, with the coal industry nearly extinct here (there are a few strip mines remaining) Carbon County has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state of Pennsylvania. Our people have been highly resourceful. To find good work, some must travel by car, for far distances to the cities like Allentown, Philadelphia, or even New York City. Some work closer to home and work at places like Walmart or Lowes Home Building Center.
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| These are stone remains of a building that once sat along the Lehigh River above Jim Thorpe. It remains from a time when large amounts of coal were being brought down from the mountains and sent to the river for shipment. Here, between Jim Thorpe and White Haven (named after the founder of the Lehigh Coal Company Josiah White), the river was made navigable by using large dams on the river to make the water slack so that boats could travel on the river. When the boats approached a dam, they pulled to the side where there were water locks for the boats to pass. |
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| Here are workers repairing the dams of the Lehigh River. Although the state closed the river to boat traffic after the 1862 flood, some of the dams were found to be beneficial and were kept and maintained. A wooden framework was built and filled with stone. |
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| Here is a picture of another dam on the river after a flood. |
He also built the Lehigh Canal along the Lehigh River to make coal delivery better in 1829. In 1854 a railroad was built that traveled from Buffalo New York to New York City.
The Lehigh Valley Railroad ran along the Lehigh River too. The canal went out of business in the 1930s during the world-wide "Great Depression." The L.V.R.R went out of business in the 1960s. Coal and steam power was replaced by petroleum and diesel and gasoline powered engines.
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| These stone remains were the foundations of the engine house you can see below in the black and white pictures. Although you cannot see the river in these shots, the Lehigh is actually very close, just out of the picture to the right. |
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| This is the area known as "Penn Haven" Junction. Coal came down from northern Carbon County to the top of the hill from Hazelton, while the tracks to the left came from the town of Weatherly. The Lehigh River is just out of the picture to the right. This flat land was cut from the hill and rests about 80 feet above the river. A large wooden wharf was built along the river prior to 1862 to help load the coal from these tracks onto large canal boats. A devastating flood hit in June 1862 wiping out the large dams. As each dam broke, it caused tidal-like waves that killed approximately 200 people. The state of Pennsylvania did not allow the coal companies to rebuild. From that time on, coal was primarily delivered by railroad. |
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| This is the inside of one of the very large locks that were built on the ends of the dams that created slack water on the river. This lock is over 20 feet tall. |
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| This is on the inside of the above lock. It is near White Haven along the Lehigh River. The arch is a water baffle. It allowed for the lock to either fill up with water (if the boat was going up river) or help the water drain out of the lock quicker if the boat was going down river. |
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| Here is a view of the river near Drakes Creek. You can see where the arch of the railroad bridge is to the left. That is where Drakes Creek enters the Lehigh River above Mud Run and below White Haven. This shot is taken just below where the pictures above of the river lock. |
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| Here is one of the roots growing in Joyce Gaumer's yard. She says the best time to pick it is "right after the last snows of winter have melted." If you wait too long she says, the roots get mushy. |
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| Here Joyce Gaumer stirs in some vinegar with her chopped up horseradish root. Horseradish is favored among the Pennsylvania Dutch in the spring time as it is one of the first roots/plants you can harvest to make food with their Easter hams. The only other plant that grows wild is the dandelion leaf that is tasty in salads. The "Dutch" like to make a dressing known as "hot bacon dressing" for their dandelion. Hot bacon dressing is made with bacon fat, flour, vinegar and sugar. |
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| Perhaps the secret to the success is in their smoke house. Using only apple and maple wood, the rings hang above a fire that will soon be damped down by the metal plate. The air is controlled by leaving the metal door open a crack. To test if the fire is at just the right temperature, the workers will place their hand on the door. If it is too hot to touch, the close it a little tighter. If it is too cool, the open it a little more. The large space at the door allows more air to pass through the smoke house and up through the chimney. |
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| Here is Barry Smith, long-time Heintzelman employee who made the balogna each week with David. This large meat grinder is grinding 150 pounds of a beef and pork mixture. |
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| One of the well-known family names in this area for over 100 years is Heintzelman. Here is David Heintzelman, last of his family in the meat business makes the renown ring bologna. Traditionally this was made each Tuesday using last week's unsold beef and pork. (They add 5 pounds of a tasty mystery ingredient to every 150 pound of meat and salt mixture they make in each batch.) |
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| Here is some "Buckwheat" honey produced by Charlie Fritz's bees on the old Herman Ahner farm. Bees are having a hard time in Pennsylvania these last several years. They are having trouble surviving and no one quite knows why. It is known as "hive collapse." One day a hive can be active and healthy. And without warning, the hive is barren and deserted. |
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| Many people in the Lehighton area can trace their ancestry to the Pennsylvania "Dutch." These people did not come from the "Netherlands" but rather from Germany. When these people arrived, they spoke the German word for "German," which is "deutsch." Many people thought they were saying "dutch" so these Germans are known as the "Dutch" today. Here old time Lehighton resident makes his yearly batch of sauerkraut. The two ingredients are cabbage and canning salt. The cabbage is shredded the old fashioned way by hand on the wooden frame with the metal blade. Then a few tablespoons of salt are added, swirl it all around with your hand, then tamp it down with the old wooden block on a broom handle (both tools are over 80 years old!). This is done each fall. The sauerkraut sits in an underground room (It is too smelly to keep in your house basement!) for about three months. Dutch people, known to be superstitious, always eat pork and sauerkraut of New Year's Day. It is considered bad luck to eat chicken or turkey on this day because birds scratch the ground and walk backwards to eat. The pig scratches the ground but always moves forward. The New Year is filled with promise and we must always move forward! |
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| Here is Joyce Gamuer, mentioned at left, who still has her grandfather's and father's copper distiller's collection kettle from making wintergreen essential oil. Today, this flavoring has been substituted by artificial flavorings. CAUTION: When one is searching for the tea berry plant, be sure to correctly identify it. Some young people have been fooled by the toad stool plant, which is similar in looks to tea berry, but it is poisonous to eat. |
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| Lehighton resides in the "foothills" of the Pocono Mountains in eastern Pennsylvania in Carbon County. In northern Carbon is an area known as the "Great Pine Swamp." This boggy area of pines and mountain laurels extends to the neighboring Monroe County to the east. This area is a prime growing area for a plant known as "tea berry." If you find this low, waxy-leafed plant with white berries, you will notice the leaves are tasty to chew on, the flavor is a minty "wintergreen" flavor. It also contains the key ingredient of aspirin, an analgesic pain-killer. Mountain people would collect this low plant with wooden rakes, mostly crawling on their hands and knees and stuffing the leaves into a burlap sack. They would take the leaves to stores or distillers who would buy it for about 5 cents per pound. Joyce Gaumer of the Pine Swamp would scavenge the forest for it when she wanted extra "pin-money" so she could go to the church cake walk for 5 cents a round. Carbon and Monroe Counties produced 80-90% of the world supply of wintergreen essential oil. This oil was used for flavoring in ice cream, chewing gum, cough medicine, and in analgesic ointments to relive muscle and joint aches. |
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| Mountain spring just above Penn Haven Junction on the Lehigh Gorge in April. Small springs like these lead to creeks and the Lehigh River. The Lehigh River leads to the Delaware River, which enters the Atlantic Ocean near Philadelphia, PA, and the state of Delaware. |
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