Port Henry, NY (POH)

Ticket Revenue

FY 2011

$87,761

Station Ridership

FY 2011

2,160

Note: Fiscal year is from
October through September.

The stone Romanesque Revival station at Port Henry was built in 1888 by George Sherman for the Delaware and Hudson Railway (D&H, now Canadian Pacific Railway). The station building, which was entered into the National Register of Historic Places on June 1, 1995, houses the Moriah Senior Citizens Center as well as the station waiting room. A caretaker from the Senior Center opens and closes the station for waiting passengers.

The Port Henry station building’s slate roof has been partially repaired by the Senior Center; further work is pending a funding source. As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s Mobility First initiative, Amtrak has scheduled the station to receive a new wheelchair lift and enclosure, new pad for lift and sidewalk to platform, improvements to the walkway to the center platform, new sidewalk and curb cut from parking to platform, and new accessible parking stalls.

Sited on the western bank of Lake Champlain, the village of Port Henry is part of the Moriah Township of mountainous Essex County. Europeans first came to the region when Champlain and his companions arrived in 1609. The conflict between the French and English over this territory delayed settlement by those of European descent. The English King empowered colonial governors to issue land grants in 1763 and soldiers were granted these lands as compensation for their services in the French and Indian War.

This part of the Adirondack Mountains, both in Vermont and New York, is rich in both iron ore and lumber. While a mill was built there in 1766, the first permanent settlement came in 1785, when William McKenzie settled in what became Port Henry. The St. Regis and Oswegatchie tribes also lived in the area, and were noted as living at Moriah Corners as late as 1804. At first, the docks built at Port Henry shipped lumber from the heavily forested hills as early as 1820, where it was rafted north to Canada and when the Champlain Canal opened, to markets downstate.

Iron ore being plentiful in the area on both sides of the lake, nearly every landowner had a try at mining. The Cheever bed north of Port Henry began to be worked seriously in 1853, as well as a number of other smaller beds. The first Port Henry blast furnace was built in 1824, and it took in ore from nearby Witherbee and Mineville to ship out on the lake. By 1869 the Lake Champlain & Moriah Railroad was carrying ore to the port, and Port Henry shipped out 230,000 tons of ore in 1868 from the beds in Moriah Township.

The Witherbee-Sherman and Company mining company made its headquarters in Port Henry, where the Sherman family had prominence and built their waterfront complex, which is still used. The Iron Center Museum is housed in a former carriage house, ice house, and laboratory for testing iron ore. The main office, built in the grand French Second Empire style in 1875, now houses the Moriah town offices. The remains of the steel trestle, built in 1929 for loading ore, can be seen along the waterfront. However, all that remains of the huge Cedar Point Blast Furnace and Foundry, which produced 200 tons of iron per day in 1892, is the concrete block warehouse now used by the marina. Outdoor displays include a Lake Champlain and Moriah locomotive, ore car, and caboose.

Nearby Ironville, on Crown Point, claims to be the “birthplace of the electric age,” as it is the site of the first industrial application of electricity. Allen Penfield purchased large electromagnets from its inventor, Joseph Henry, for use at the ironworks in 1831, where it was used to separate crushed magnetite ore from its quartz matrix.

The unstaffed Port Henry station has an enclosed waiting area, but Amtrak does not provide ticketing or assistance with baggage.

Port Henry is served by two daily trains. Service on the Adirondack is financed primarily through funds made available by the New York State Department of Transportation.