Erskine Hazard

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

Erskine Hazard (1790-1865) and his partner Josiah White were industrialists who developed infrastructure projects in Pennsylvania and throughout the Northeastern United States, which proved influential in ushering in the Industrial Revolution in the United States, which served as a foundation for the rise of the United States as the world's foremost economic power.