In 1996, author Joan Gilbert walked a section of the Lehigh Canal in the Weissport area with former canal worker, Richard Arner. Arner was 86 years old then and “sharp as a tack.” 

Gilbert wanted to glean some of Arner’s knowledge of the Canal, for, at the time, Arner was one of five surviving canal workers. Arner has since passed away and Gilbert wanted to share her notes with the public—so we decided to walk in Richard Arner’s footsteps. 

Gilbert, author of Gateway to the Coalfields - the Upper Grand Section of the Lehigh Canal, accompanied by Rod Mann, Secretary Treasury of the Lehigh Canal and Recreation Commission joined the walk. Mann and his wife, Jennifer, own the Canalside Guest House, a historical building overlooking the Lehigh Canal near the Weissport access. 

Mann believes the three-story Canalside Guest House was built in 1826, about the same time as the Lehigh Canal—the canal passes about thirty yards in front of it. He traced it’s deeds in the Carbon County Court records to 1834. Before that, Weissport was part of Northampton County and those records are in Easton. 

The Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company originally planned to construct that section of the canal on the west, Lehighton side, of the Lehigh River. Col. Jacob Weiss owned the property on the east side of the Lehigh River. At the time, it was called Weiss’ mill and it wasn’t yet a village. 

Weiss offered LC&N right of way free through his farm on the east side, which extended some distance down the river. The proposition was accepted and the canal was constructed.  After this was decided upon, Col. Weiss and his sons laid out a village plot. 

Canalside was built as the home of attorney and businessman J.K. Rickert. The building was next to his business, Rickert’s Coal Yard. The coal yard offloaded anthracite from canal boats and sold it locally, chiefly for home heating. At the time, the canal was much closer to the building. When the Canal Street extension of Rt. 248 was constructed, the section of canal was shifted to the west. 

Mrs. Rickert had a garden and a fishpond. There was a blacksmith shop and mule stables just north of the building. Twenty years ago, a fire destroyed all that had remained from the canal days. 

Across Canal Road is a large lot, which during the canal era, was a boatyard where canal boats were constructed. Boats were built and repaired at the Weissport Boat Yards. The boats floated in a widened section of the canal. A “marine railroad,” an inclined plane with tracks, used mules to pull the boats out of the water when they required re-caulking. 

About 1832, Lewis Weiss began building boats for the Morris Canal and Banking Company, and the Lehigh Navigation Company. After the 1841 flood, Andrew Graver, of Lehighton, moved to Weissport, and built a boatyard below Lock No. 9 that ran until 1877. In 1846, Nathan Snyder opened a boat-yard above Lock No. 9, and built boats there till 1872. 

The flood of 1862 devastated Weissport. Hardly a building was free of water damage. Four residents were drowned. The village now has levees to protect the town from floodwater. The Lehigh Canal is designed that, in the event of high water, it overflows into the Lehigh River, thus protecting Weissport from flooding on its east side.

Most recently, Hurricane Ivan flooded the Lehigh River, raising its waters to challenge the levies, which held. The great amount of water flowing into the Lehigh Canal, overflowed into the river, as designed, but washed out a portion of its bank. This has since been reconstructed with the help of money from the Federal Emergency Management Administration.