The jagged sluice of the Lehigh River cuts through the Allegheny Mountains of northern Pennsylvania. Thither from great passenger stations and greater freight terminals on New York Harbor run the rails of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, clean as carving knives. Across north central New Jersey they go—through manufacturing city butted against manufacturing city.
Where the Lehigh River joins the Delaware they strap New Jersey to Pennsylvania. Then up through the cliff-hugged Lehigh Valley they climb, where trees remain. Up where Moravian missionaries once established their...