 Joseph White and Erskine Hazard made a partnership between their company and the Lehigh Coal Mine Company to form the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, which was incorporated in 1822.They received a charter from the Pennsylvania legislature giving them the right to improve navigation on the Lehigh River, which effectively granted them a monopoly over the Lehigh.White and Hazard ordered the construction of a roadway to link the Summit Hill Mine and the Lehigh River, and then ordered the building of a canal.