In 1823, after building and testing four locks, Josiah White made a proposal to the Pennsylvania legislature to continue the improvements down the Lehigh River. His plan included locks suitable for a coastal schooner and towing steam tug, the types of boats which dominated ports along the of the Delaware River controlled by the LC&N. The following year, the legislature rejected his proposal; lumber and timber interests feared that damming would prevent them from rafting logs on the rivers to local sawmills. White and Hazard scrambled to increase mine production while producing enough lumber for arks to send their coal along the Delaware to Philadelphia. In 1827, a revision to the Main Line of Public Works funded the promised Delaware Canal. The LC&N began converting the canal to support two-way operation, work which continued into 1829. In 1831, the LC&N stopped making one-way arks and began building large, durable barges, expecting their return via a connection with the Delaware Division of the Pennsylvania Canal in Easton.