Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Weissport, PA

Weissport is a tiny borough in southern Carbon County, squeezed onto the east bank of the Lehigh River directly across from the much larger borough of Lehighton.

Weissport was founded in 1792 by Colonel Jacob Weiss, a Revolutionary War officer who bought about 700 acres from the Moravians in 1783 and brought his family there in 1785.

The Weissport area was earlier the site of New Gnadenhutten, a Moravian mission settlement founded in 1746 near the original Gnadenhutten mission, the site of a 1755 massacre during the French and Indian War.

In 1756 Benjamin Franklin oversaw the building of Fort Allen at present-day Weissport to protect frontier settlers, and the well from the original fort still exists in the town.

Colonel Weiss helped found the Lehigh Coal Mine Company after anthracite coal was accidentally discovered near Summit Hill in 1791, launching Carbon County's coal industry.

When the Lehigh Canal was completed through Weissport in 1829, the town became the only boat-building and repair facility along the entire Lehigh Canal.

By 1832 Lewis Weiss, the colonel's son, was building canal boats at Weissport for both the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company and the Morris Canal and Banking Company.

The first wooden bridge across the Lehigh River to Weissport was built in 1805, and within its first twenty years the town had a post office, taverns, banks and stores.

Weissport is remarkably small — the whole borough covers only about 0.16 square miles, much of it the low ground between the Lehigh River and the former Lehigh Canal.

The 2000 census counted 434 people in 176 households in Weissport, and the population held nearly steady at 413 in the 2020 census.