The owners of this company were absentee management—reliant on teams of workers sent under a foreman to fell timber to build so called 'Arks' (high-sided punts), then mine coal around nine miles (today's Summit Hill) from the right bank Lehigh (the Lehigh & Susquehanna Turnpike terminus at Mauch Chunk), then trek with mule loads to fill the boats for the trip down the rapid strewn Lehigh River,(Brenckman, p. 595-597) and then more than 60 miles to Philadelphia docks on the unimproved often log choked (Bartholomew, p. 4–5)