Erskine Hazard

When the U.S. President put an embargo in place on Bituminous coal imports from Great Britain in the tension prior to the War of 1812, the partners moved to secure an anthracite supply, which was then a barely known and unutilized commodity.

Coal, in the Lehigh region, was discovered on Sharp mountain, where Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, now stands, in the year 1791, by Philip Ginter.

They also had a major role in inspiring the use by others of the hard to burn anthracite, initially in industrial processes and later in large supplies transported to Philadelphia along the Schuylkill River valley.

Erskine Hazard died in 1865 a wealthy individual that had, along with partner-mentor Josiah White, created thousands of jobs and founded whole industries unknown in their youth.

Railroading grew up from the early strap iron angles attached to hardwood tracks to T-rails which have common ancestry with today's steel welded rails.

A 19th century illustration of Hazard and Josiah White , his partner
Hazard assessed what was necessary to make the Lehigh River navigable, at least temporarily enough to float coal barges past obstacles and the constant grade road bed, which descended about 1,100 feet (340 m) in 9 miles (14 km) from Summit Hill to the coal chute designed by White to load barges in present-day Jim Thorpe