The Lehigh Coal & Navigation 245 hinge boat will soon be dismantled and moved to a new location.

The hinge boat, which has been a symbol of the early American Industrial Era, has been docked on the campus of Tri-Boro Sportsmen Club, Northampton, near three bodies of water.

The boat was discovered in the late 1970s by a group of divers from the Allentown YMCA at the bottom of 40 feet of water at the quarry owned by the club.

With the expertise of Tom McDonald, a harbor master from New York, and a group of other men, the hinge boat, which some mistakingly refer to as a barge, was recently hoisted carefully onto shore.

The hinge boats hauled coal, dry goods and other items, to and from the region.

Tri-Boro Sportsmen Club President Roger Bodnar said the club made some repairs to the wooden craft, including painting, and installed a dry dock near a roadway leading to the club.

During the 1980s a U.S. Navy Reserve contingent spent weekends working to restore the hinge boat.

"We were told it would be good if we could keep the hinge boat in some kind of shape to 2000. We did good. It is 2013," Bodnar said.

John Drury, a curator in the Jim Thorpe-Weissport area, showed an interest in including the boat as part of a museum featuring the canal.

Over the past few weeks, he and some volunteers have come to the club's property and began dismantling the boat, with an eye toward salvaging the bow for the museum.

Bodnar said the Tri-Boro Sportsmen Club has a much smaller replica of a hinge boat at the club for members and the public to view.