OLD MAUCH CHUNK

If you know me at all, you know the Pennsylvania anthracite coal region fascinates me; if you don't know me at all, now you know at least this much. I never actually lived there, but I have ancestors who did, and it seems the family ties keep calling me back. Following that call, I went on a little frolic yesterday 50 miles north into Carbon County, to the town of Jim Thorpe, which I prefer to know as Old Mauch Chunk, its former Indian-derived name. The name means "Bear Mountain". My ancestor Thomas Clemson North lived there for a time, and I understand he managed and operated a wire factory in the town. He married Harriet Belford, the daughter of a magisterial judge. Yesterday, I wandered several miles north along the railroad line that runs beside the Lehigh River on the western bank. Twenty miles north (no, I didn't walk that far) is the coal transshipment town of White Haven, named for Josiah White, one of the pioneers of the anthracite industry. A slight overcast tempered but did not extinguish the warmth of the sun; the river was running strong and flashed white rapids as it tumbled over the rocks in the Lehigh Gorge. I was trying to absorb the spirit of the place, because it figures highly in Book Two of my Up Home novel series. Mauch Chunk reeks history. Unbelievable as it may seem, in the golden era of the anthracite, railroad, canal and quarrying industries in Pennsylvania, the town rivaled Niagara Falls as a tourist destination and resort retreat. It sits in a valley among steep mountains, and has been called "Little Switzerland" by travel promoters perhaps given to a touch of hyperbole. Asa Packer, the founder of Lehigh University and the Lehigh Valley Railroad, made his home there -- a grand Victorian mansion overlooking the town -- and endowed one of the wealthiest parishes of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Bethlehem. I like the place.