The Henry family of Northampton County is most famous for the iron and gun making industries they established in Nazareth, Jacobsburg, Henry's Forge, and Boulton, beginning as early as 1780. In these early American villages—located in today's Central Region of the D&L National Heritage Corridor—the Henrys harnessed waterpower from Bushkill Creek to forge the first bar of iron in Northampton County and make tens-of-thousands of rifles, muskets, shotguns, and pistols for the Fur Trade and frontiersmen in the American West, mountain men in the Rockies, US soldiers in the War of 1812, Union soldiers in the Civil War, and hunters and trappers across the country. In partnership with the D&L National Heritage Corridor, PA Department of Conservation & Natural Resources and Jacobsburg Historical Society, the Henry family's early American industrial history and heritage is well preserved and interpreted for the public at the Boulton Historic Site, in the Jacobsburg National Historic District at Jacobsburg State Park, in Bushkill Township.
But lesser known and celebrated is the early conservation history of James Henry (1809-1895), who wrote Pennsylvania's first bill to protect and restore the Commonwealth's streamside forests and water quality; actively lobbied the State House and Senate to support the bill in Harrisburg; and petitioned the Pennsylvania Forestry Association, the American Forestry Congress in Boston, and the USDA Forestry Division in Washington to support and advocate for schools of forestry in the nation's colleges and universities. And all this as an active volunteer and engaged citizen, while managing the Boulton Gun Works with his family.
At the height of the early logging industry in the 1880s, James met with Pennsylvania State Senator Jeremiah Hess from Northampton County to seek his help in petitioning the Commonwealth to do something about the uncontrolled stormwater erosion and soil sediment pollution of streams and rivers across the state. Senator Hess, trusting in James' grasp of the situation, understanding of ecological principles, and formidable writing skills, encouraged Henry to draft a bill to address the issue point by point, which the senator would then sponsor in the State Legislature in Harrisburg. James immediately went to work on drafting just such a bill on behalf of Senator Hess.
During the second session after its presentation in the State Assembly in 1885, Senate Bill 71 (House Bill 518), "An act to encourage the planting of trees near the springs and along the water courses of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," passed the Senate with but one dissenting vote. And during the same 1885 session, it received an affirmative vote in the State House of Representatives and passed the second reading of that body. Unfortunately, the bill failed to pass its third and final consideration of the State House by a vote of 90 to 58.
Had it passed that final reading in the State House, the bill that James Henry wrote at the family homestead at Boulton would have become Pennsylvania's first public law addressing the protection of waterways by creating a state nursery for the planting of riparian forest buffers. It wasn't until 1897—twelve years after Henry's bill was defeated in the State House of Representatives and two years after his death—that the Pennsylvania State Legislature would authorize a Forestry Commission and Forest Reserve System to rehabilitate the state's forest and water resources though the creation of a forest nursery system, as was the longtime vision for which James Henry so tirelessly fought.
James Henry was both a man of his time and a man ahead of it. Over 130 years after James Henry first articulated his vision and wrote a legislative bill for forested buffers, the restoration and protection of streamside forests and water quality is today a subject of community concern and conservation initiatives throughout Pennsylvania. And because of early education advocates like Henry, forestry and environmental science programs are today offered at state colleges and universities across Pennsylvania and throughout the nation.