Although Jennifer and Rod Mann have a Lehighton address for their Canalside Guest House, the property is across the Lehigh River from Lehighton, and across the Lehigh Canal from Weissport. It is in a section of Weissport that became separated and found itself in Franklin Township after the Lehigh Canal was completed in 1829.
For awhile, this section of land along the east side of the Lehigh Canal, which was home to the largest boat building facility on the Lehigh Navigation System, became known as North Weissport, or sometimes, East Weissport.
But things were to change with the arrival of Jacob K. Rickert. The Mann’s Canalside Guest House is the home that Rickert built, and that his son Hiram, and his son Harry lived in.
Jacob K. Rickert was born in Bucks County in 1821. His parents, Daniel & Elizabeth Rickert, had emigrated from Germany. Jacob grew up on his father’s farm and educated in Bucks County.
Rickert taught school in Lehigh County until 1846, and then he went to work as a clerk in a store in Washington Township, near Slatington. In 1849, he moved to Stemlersville, in Towamensing Township. He purchased a hotel there, which he operated from 1851 to 1857.
After Weissport had been damaged by a series of floods, people began moving to the higher ground east of the Lehigh Canal. Shipments along the canal encouraged the development of businesses—and caught the attention of Rickert. In 1857, he purchased land in North Weissport, and started a coal, lumber, flour and feed business.
Rickert invested in undeveloped land in North Weissport, and began selling building lots. His development became known as Rickertsville.
Jacob married Mary Newhart in 1848 and had two children, Hiram and Daniel. Mary died in 1858. Two years later, Jacob married Elizabeth Hoffman. She died a few years later.
After Mr. Rickert’s death, his son Hiram carried on the business in Rickertsville. In 1870, a lime kiln was constructed alongside the Rickert property. Hiram sold flour, feed, grain, coal and fertilizer. Hiram was followed by his son, Harry Rickert, who continued the business until the 1950s. The coal yards were relocated closer to the Central of New Jersey Railroad after the canal closed in 1933.
Mike Ebbert, a retired vice principal at Lehighton High School was friends with Joanne Thomas, now Joanne Thomas Haney, Mike’s sister Anna was Joanne’s elementary school teacher.
Haney lived in the Rickert house from 1938 to 1941. It was then owned by Harry Rickert. She lived with her grandparents Asaby and Pauline Rehrig in the three-story four-bay north wing. Harry Rickert lived in the center three-story two-bay section, and the south wing, a to story structure was rented to a seamstress.
Haney’s parents had separated and she lived with her grandparents. Her grandfather worked for the Lehigh Valley Railroad. She believes he was the oldest conductor on the Lehigh Valley Railroad. They moved frequently and she lived in the Rickert house for three years, from third to sixth grades.
After high school, she left the area and returned to East Penn Township six years ago to work at her daughter’s performance studio, Steppin’ Out, in Schnecksville. On a visit to Penn’s Peak, she passed the Rickert House and “I was heart broken when I looked at the way the house looks now,” said Haney. “I thought my grandfather must be turning in his grave.”
The house she saw was missing the front porch that had lent grace to the mid-19th century house. It remained when she left in 1941 and may have been removed when a paved Canal Street was squeezed between the existing houses.
Jennifer and Rod Mann have been seeking information about the history of the Rickert House and Rickertsville. The house, now the Canalside Guest House is about 5,000 sq. ft. with six bedrooms.
The house is listed in the Historic American Engineering Record of the National Park Service where it is described as “Probably built in the second quarter of the 19th century as a canal side hotel. Later that century barn/warehouse on the property 50 feet south was the headquarters for Rickert’s Coal and Freight Company.”
Although the Mann’s were not aware the building was thought to be designed as a hotel, they felt that it might have been used as a boarding house for workers at the adjacent Weissport boatyards. Behind the house is a large oven. Mann believes that it was used to bake breads and pies that may have been sold to the canal boat families.
Thanks to Mike Ebbert for historical background.
Joanne Thomas Haney tells a story about living in the Rickert House—a story that occurred when she was a young girl, over 65 years ago. She loved a wrought iron staircase that descended to an ivy-landscaped spring-fed pool at the street level.
“I used to be a screamer,” said Haney. “Everything made me scream. My grandmother said, ‘One day, you are going to need us and you will scream and we are not coming to see what’s wrong with you.’”
“Two weeks later, as I came down this ivy-covered winding stairway, I stepped on the tail of a green snake. It crawled up my leg.”
It climbed up into her clothing. “I screamed and they didn’t come,” Haney said. “I screamed so much, I lost my voice. My grandparents didn’t come—but it must have scared the snake because it unwound itself and took off. I couldn’t talk for three days afterwards.”
