Josiah White, Prince of Pioneers (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Josiah White, Prince of Pioneers, by Eleanor Morton (Elizabeth Gertrude Stern). New York, Stephen Daye Press, 1946. 300 pp. $2.50. JOSIAH WHITE was more responsible than anyone else for the opening of the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania to the industrial system. His original purpose was to create a great network of inland waterways connecting all parts of the United States. In 1810, he bought the Falls of the Schuylkill, hoping to make that river the center of his system, but after failing to arouse sufficient interest in that project, in 1818, he organized a company to improve the Lehigh River for navigation. The rough topography of Pennsylvania made it inevitable that his dream should never be fulfilled. In his failure, however, Josiah White achieved much. To pay for his works of navigation and to provide cargoes for his river boats, he was forced to open the anthracite deposits of the Lehigh Valley, and even to carry on a campaign to convince the skeptics of Philadelphia that the "black stones" would burn. Coal made the Valley, and the company which White founded in 1822 was called the "Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company ." He also invented such devices as the "bear trap lock," and a gravity "switchback" railroad to carry coal from Mine to riverside. His iron will could be deflected neither by man nor nature. Even when he died in 1850, he had not admitted that his great dream was impossible of fulfillment. Josiah White was born in 1781 into a family of New Jersey Friends, and he remained an active member of the Society throughout his life. He took part in philanthropic activities, and used religious terminology in his journal; but he was first of all a man of enterprise rather than of religion. There was little in his business dealings which would distinguish them from those of hundreds of other visionary businessmen of his day who concentrated just as completely upon their affairs, treated their employees as well, and worked them as hard as did Josiah White. His first wife, Catherine Ridgeway, died shortly after their marriage in 1805. His second, Elizabeth White, survived her husband, after a very trying life, during which he left her in Philadelphia much of the time, while he supervised his business in the Valley. Almost alone she bore the sorrow of the deaths of their three sons, and reared their two daughters . Josiah may have loved his family; but he was more devoted to his Valley. The present biography of Josiah White is very disappointing. Eleanor Morton has used his journal and the papers of the White family, but she has used them uncritically. She even changes the wording of excerpts from the journal ; she seldom gives any indication, either in text or footnote , of the sources of her numerous quotations; and her imagination reveals the inner workings of the mind of Elizabeth White. Her full 39 40 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION treatment of many subsidiary characters, apparently to add romantic interest , creates the impression that she is following the pattern of a work of fiction rather than the requirements of a serious biography. There is no space here to enumerate the many errors in historical fact that appear in this book. The author displays insufficient knowledge of the historical setting to give us perspective on White's actual importance . Rather she accepts at their face value his own estimates of himself , and his rather narrow views of the affairs of the period. In a book dealing largely with the development of transportation, not a single map is presented, and there are no diagrams nor even adequate descriptions of such technical devices as the "bear trap lock" or the "switchback railroad." Josiah White was not the greatest pioneer of his age, as Eleanor Morton implies, but he was important enough to deserve a good biography . It is still to be written. Swarthmore CollegeTheodore Paullin Quaker Anecdotes. Collected and Arranged by Irvin C. Foley and Ruth Verlenden Poley. Wallingford, Pennsylvania, Pendle Hill, 1946. 57 pp. Fifty cents. TT IS nearly sixteen years since Constance Rourke, one of the most talented of modern American critics, published American Humor, the first serious...