NEB&W Guide to Port Henry, NY

Last Update: 2009-06-22

Layout Photo Gallery Table of Contents

Overview

St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church

  • In the 19th century, there was small blast furnaces built all over Port Henry. This one, called the Cedar Point furnace, was rebuilt in 1912-'22 to a much larger facility, as a consolidation of the all the previous smaller facilities.

  • Aerial view 1922, showing (left to right) the two furnaces and slag field in front, the concrete trestle with overhead crane and the wood ore trestle. Photo courtesy Witherbee-Sherman Free Library.

  • Wood ore trestle complex as seen from the north end, c. 1920. Prototype photo from the Witherbee-Sherman Free Library Collection.

  • The trestling originally ran all the way to the furnace.

  • At some point after 1920, the wood trestle was rebuilt as steel. The only photos we have to this just show a glimpse.

    Generator Room

    • There was a tiny structure on the crest of the hill, which I thought was a powerhouse of some sort. The concrete block construction would seem to date it to the 1920's when the rest of the plant was constructed. Jim Breeyear said his father was an electrician for the ore company in Port Henry and he used to refer to the "powerhouse" as the "generator room". Jim believes it was used for conditioning the power that was used to run either or both the overhead crane and the electric mule engine. There may have been several AC to DC generators in that building because his father used to say that the whine of the generators used to put him to sleep while on duty. Melanie Sembrat said it was just torn down (2005).

  • View of the station from a top the concrete ore trestle remains, c. 1974. The ornate Mansard-roofed red building was the Witherbee-Sherman headquarters, now the town hall. The line to the mine ran just behind.

    Pink Gothic Revival House

    Sherwin-Witherbee Offices/Town Hall

    • The Witherbee-Sherman office is now the town hall.

    • The carriage house for the office was very ornate and now houses the museum.

    White House

  • The LC&M tracks crossed over Rt. 22. There was a waiting shelter right there for any passengers. The station was torn down in 1936. The bridge was removed in 1993 because of clearance issues.
    • [Photo from the Town of Moriah Historical Society.]
    • [Another view c. 1930 from our collection.]

    Depot

    • The depot was built in the Romanesque style, with stonework "rough-hewn" to emphasis the building material.
      • [Postcard, c. 1906.]
      • [Photo c. 1931. Note how immaculate the scene is. And this is during the Depression, when modelers represent everything is run down and decayed.]
      • [Prototype photo c. 1960's by Gerrit Bruins. (We don't know how to get rid of the fungus on the slide - sorry.)]
      • [Looking north c. 1950's by Gerrit Bruins.]
      • [Prototype photo c. 2002.]
      • [Floor plan c. 1950's.]

    Goodrich Garage & REA Building

    • Behind the depot was a Goodrich garage and a small Railway Express building (on the right) that looked like a small house. Notice all the graceful elms. The crossing of the LC&M over Rt. 22 can be seen to the left.
      • [Photo from the NEB&W's D&H Collection, c. 1930's looking north.]
      • [Another angle from the NEB&W's D&H Collection, c. 1930's looking north.]
      • [Photo from the NEB&W's D&H Collection, c. 1930's looking east at the REA building.]
      • [Sanborn map.]
      • [Close-up.]

    • Looking west behind the depot, with the REA building to the right.

    Little Warehouse

    • Looking west behind the depot, there was a little warehouse on the left (with a sign that simply says "Warehouse"), tucked in again the embankment of Rt. 22.
      • [Photo from our D&H Collection, c. 1930's, with the little warehouse on the extreme left.]
      • [Photo c. 1930's, looking dead-on the end of the building.]
      • [Photo c. 1930's, showing the north end and the trackside.]
      • [Photo c. 1930's, close-up.]

    Overhead Traveling Crane

    • The cantilever traveling bridge crane was built in 1918. The clam that picked up the ore is near the center of the photo, with the man standing under it. The clam could move to the very end of the bridge to either dump into railroad cars on the ground level or into barges on the lake at the left end. The middle area was for ore storage. The box located to the right of the photo, under the bridge, is for the crane operator. The large oblong box located inside the bridge contained machinery.

    The Furnaces

    • Furnace and two stoves on the north end were built in 1912. Furnace and four stoves on the south were built in 1922, but were very different from the 1912 complex. The "high line" allowed cars to dump onto a complex conveyor system underneath. Prototype photos courtesy Witherbee-Sherman Free Library.

    • John Scott kitbashed two Walthers kits to more closely match the real Port Henry complex. In progress shot, 1999.

    • The view from the Rt. 22.

    • The electric "mule" was a narrow-gauge loco that ran along the base of the concrete trestle and pushed hopper cars on the adjacent track into position for loading from the overhead crane. These poor photos from a 1920 Iron Age article are the only ones we've seen of this wee beastie.

  • From the NEB&W's D&H Collection, a 1930's view of the freight house looking southeast. The sinter plant is in the background to the left, the roundhouse to the right.

  • Looking from the other end. C. 1940's view looking north. The roundhouse is on the left, with the freight house obscuring most of the depot.

  • A similar view as a D&H train heads south.

  • The unknown photographer turned around (he was standing on the pedestrian bridge over the tracks) to catch the train passing under him. Notice the unusual drainage ditch alongside the tracks and the turntable in the distance.

  • A shot as the train passes further south.

  • A similar angle, c. 1960's.
    • [Photo by Gerrit Bruins.]

  • The end of the sinter plant, which was very narrow. It was built c. 1923.
    • [Photo courtesy of the Town of Moriah Historical Society, looking north.]

  • The south end of the blast furnace complex, c. 1931. Prototype photo from NEB&W D&H Collection. Around 1940, it was purchased by Republic Steel.

  • The D&H had a long tool house located just south of the roundhouse.

  • As D&H locos got bigger, the 50 foot turntable in front of the roundhouse was moved south where there was more room. It can be seen just to the lower left in the above photo.

  • The culvert under the road down by the turntable.

  • When Republic Steel took over, they immediately dieselized, with two switchers replacing a number of steam engines on the Lake Champlain & Moriah. They were able to do away with the roundhouse and turntable located just up the hill, and instead converted the long concrete block warehouse into an engine house.

  • An NEB&W freight passes by the south end of the Republic Steel blast furnace complex. Brian Albrecht built the cast-resin kit for the Delaware & Hudson composite hopper. Al Wood modified an Athearn gondola to model a Wabash gon.

  • There was a scale house at the southern entrance to the yard. Loaded cars would be weighed there and if over or under the desired weight, switched back into the yard to be adjusted.

  • By the '60's, if not a decade or two earlier, all that was left of the plant was the concrete ore trestle.

    Port Henry Operations

  • D&H report as to one day's operations of their switcher in 1942, 8 AM - 4 PM.

  • Freight traffic for the whole of 1951 by carload.
    • [Report. (First column is for inbound cars, the second, outbound, the third, the total.)]

    See our Layout Guide for Port Henry and the history of Port Henry iron making.