Lake Champlain & Moriah Railroad Locomotive

  The Lake Champlain & Moriah Railroad was built in 1868 between Lake Champlain and Port Henry on Lake Champlain and Mineville, a distance of 6.6 miles in 1868.The Moriah Plank Road had greatly improved the transporting of iron ore from the Moriah mines to the lake shore furnaces and docks, but the mining companies needed a railroad. 

  In 1868, Port Henry Iron Ore Company funded and began construction of the line.  Many of the engines bore familiar names, like “Witherbee,” “G. Sherman,” “Cedar Point,” and “Adirondack.”  When the Lake Champlain & Moriah Railroad replaced the Moriah Plank Road, the effect on mining operations was significant, reducing the cost per ton of ore shipped from 90 cents over the Moriah Plank Road to 32 cents per ton by rail.

 The stone block walls on either side of the intersection of Route 9N and Park Place once supported the railroad bridge that guided the “Elsie and Em” around its final bend, behind Witherbee, Sherman and Company’s Port Henry Office, where remains of the bed can still be seen, and to its Cedar Point destination, where Witherbee, Sherman built a furnace in the 1870s. The railroad ran from Port Henry on Lake Champlain to Mineville, 6.6 miles.

 Regular passenger service was discontinued way back in 1885, although irregular service continued, in mixed train service. There was a car, Number 3, which while looking like a cupola-less bobber caboose, was listed as their only coach in  1938. It was downgraded to just a caboose by 1940. The line was abandoned in 1968.