 By mid-1822, managing director Josiah White was consulting with Canvass White, a veteran designing engineer of New York's Erie Canal locks, and by late 1822 had shifted construction efforts from bolstering and improving the one-way system begun in 1818 with ambitious two-way dams and lock construction capable of taking both a steam tug and a coastal cargo ship all 45 miles from the Delaware to the slack water pool at Mauch Chunk.