According to local historians, Philip Ginder, often called Ginter, made the early discovery of coal in this remote area in 1791. Ginder was a local miller who was out hunting along "Sharpe Mountain" and found an outcrop of a hard rock that was called "stone coal", or
anthracite, which he recognized as possibly being coal. To verify this discovery, Mr. Ginder gave it to Col. Weiss the very next day. Col. Weiss said he would give Mr. Ginder of land if he showed where the coal was found, and Mr. Ginder agreed to the deal. Col. Weiss took the specimen by horseback to Philadelphia and had it further inspected by John Nicholson,
Michael Hillegas, and brother-in-law
Charles Cist (printer); Hillegas had been the Treasurer of the United States under the Continental Congress through the American Revolution. Upon authentication, Weiss was authorized to grant Ginter what he propositioned for his discovery upon pointing out the exact location where it was found. Ginter built a mill on the tract of land he acquired but was later deprived of it by the owner who had filed a prior claim at the US patent office. Weiss, Hillegas, and Nicholson in 1791-92 were some of the original investors in the
Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LCMC) which was later part of the historic merger which formed the influential and historically important Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N)—anthracite was known of, but it was not known well. How to get 'Stone Coal' to burn easily or reliably was another question, yet the Eastern Seaboard was suffering the same sort of deforestation that had occasioned the use of coal in Great Britain. Unlike Europe, the young American nation did not have millennium of commerce to wear cart navigable, if poor and muddy, roads between cities. Most roads were still trails unfriendly to any vehicle with axles. Travel by water was the only fast way to get anywhere, and the only effective way to ship heavy or bulky goods, and anthracite coal was both. Meanwhile, infant American industries and the wealthy in the other former colonies were importing fuels. Companies were even shipping coal from England and Virginia for American cities to use for heat or power. Early on in 1792 this new LCMC company attempted to be the first that regularly brought coal down from
Summit Hill, Pennsylvania across
Pisgah Ridge in the rough terrains typical of the
ridge channeled mountainous areas of the
Southern Anthracite Coal Region of Northeast Pennsylvania. The trip down from the mine necessitated the use of pack mules and then later with some road improvements, oxen and carts to transship the sacks or baskets of coal down hill 8–9 miles (12.9–14.5 km) to load the coal into sturdy boats, probably along the river banks now occupied by the village of
Packerton at the mouth of
Beaverdam Run or along the nearly parallel
Mahoning Creek (which bisects nearby
Lehighton)—both are right bank tributaries on the
Lehigh River on the opposite shore from Colonel Weiss's
Weissport, Pennsylvania. Getting the anthracite mined and then down to the Lehigh River; a right bank tributary of the
Delaware River, and so a way down to Philadelphia or even the relatively nearby
Iron foundries of
Allentown and
Bethlehem was only part of the transportation problem & solution— for the river had spates of rapids and was infamously treacherous. As recently as 1817 3 of 5 barges foundered on their way down the river, an event which triggered the founding of the'' 'Lehigh Navigation Company','' and occasion a new management team taking over the LCMC in 1818—this eventually led (1820) to the formation of the company which built the
Lehigh Canal and the
America's second railroad when the LCMC couldn't deliver coal regularly nor reliably. == Later life ==