OF MEAT AND MINES

Houses in Port Henry, NY

The Police Blotter in our local newspaper, February 2:

”Received a complaint from a North Street resident about a suspicious white male in his 40’s.  The man apparently asked the resident if he wanted to purchase some steak or chicken.  The resident told the police he had a friend who encountered a similar incident, and the salesman later broke into his friend’s house.  The suspicious man’s black Toyota pickup truck had New York plates, two freezers in the back, and a sticker that read “Prime.”  There were no further complaints related to such activity.”

This is a story that belongs to this part of the country in several ways. First of all, there’s the issue of meat. 

You might well ask:  What’s the likelihood of someone knocking on your door and asking if you want to buy meat?  Stolen meat?  Poached meat?  Who would buy meat without knowing where it came from, anyway?  No, I don’t think anyone is going to knock on our door anytime soon looking to sell meat. However, up here buying meat from people or places that are not actual meat markets is not unusual.  After all, people who shoot deer may end up with some two hundred pounds of venison.  And people who raise animals for their meat sometimes end up with more than they need.  At the end of this month, for example, we will be buying half a pig (the other half going to my daughter’s family in Newburyport) from someone who will have more pork on his hands than he needs after having several pigs slaughtered.  There’s meat for sale all over the place at different times of the year, grass-fed, organic, or not.

So much for meat.

Looking back toward Vermont from the New York side, Port Henry

More interesting is the fact that the suspicious man’s black pickup truck had New York plates.  Maybe mention of the New York plates was inadvertent. In any case, some Vermonters have a thing about New York State, or at least the part that’s directly across Lake Champlain.  I heard a story, possibly apocryphal, about someone from Vermont, I think it was an ice fisherman, who left his pickup on the Lake overnight, quite near the New York side.  Too near, I guess.  Next day, the pickup was on blocks, all the tires gone.  If he’d parked it on the Vermont side, you see, this wouldn’t have happened.  So they say.

The New York side of the Lake is noticeably different from the Vermont side.  At least one town immediately across Lake Champlain–I’m thinking of Essex, for example, at the New York end of the Charlotte, Vermont, ferry–has that old New England character with quaint buildings, an interesting store, an art gallery, an ice cream shop, a small restaurant, nice homes, all with good paint jobs.  If you traveled no further you might imagine the road ahead would lead to much the same.  This is, after all, the home of the famed high peaks that loom just behind the foothills that begin right at the shoreline.  But it doesn’t.  Just as the Adirondack mountains are wilder and rougher than the Green Mountains, more woods than meadows, less farmed than mined, the town also are rougher and more unkempt.  

On this side of the lake the mountains seem to press aggressively into some of the houses.

In the Adirondacks, but these are not actual mountains.  They are mine tailings near Moriah.

It’s mostly about mining.

Mining operations began in 1824 with the discovery of a top grade of iron ore in the mountains around the New York town of Moriah.  A lode called the Cheever bed, located some 1 to 1-1/2 miles north of Port Henry, is the oldest, although there are other, mostly smaller ones. In Moriah's earliest days settlers would go to the mine, pile the iron onto sleds and drag them back to town, according to Wikipedia.  The Cheever bed began to be worked more seriously in 1853, along with the other smaller beds. An economic boom was set in motion.  Along with mining companies came the railroad to bring the ore from the towns of Mineville and Witherbee to the main line at Port Henry, eventually turning that port into a busy transport terminal for the railroad and lake barges. An aggregate of 230,000 tons was produced from the ore beds in 1868, presumably the heyday of iron mining.

The local economies of towns like Moriah, Port Henry, and the uninspiringly named Mineville boomed for as long as the mining operations lasted.  But that wasn’t long enough.  In the early 1970’s when huge open pit mines were developed out west, the mining industry in New York State went bust. Now the towns look worn out and tired, with more closed storefronts than open ones. This probably has little to do with the recession of recent years; this downward slide looks as if it’s been going on for decades. 

Several of the large companies that operated the mines left their marks in the local architecture. The company headquarters of Witherbee, Sherman now serves as the Moriah/Port Henry town offices. 

The amazing building that was once a mine company headquarters; now town offices.

Once grand but now decayed Victorian-era buildings beg for rehabilitation. Streets are still filled with company houses, many of which were built with blocks made from iron ore tailings.  Sadly there are no signs of the charms that animate Essex. 

This Moriah town park has it all: directional sign to "Moriah Shock," gas or electrical meter, a digital clock, a gazebo and who knows what else, dedicated to a Medal of Honor winner.

Someone may be trying to save this house in Port Henry.

Rexall drugstores went out of business in the late 1970's.

Perhaps all is not lost:  In 2011 Port Henry was the port where sections of the stunning new Champlain bridge were assembled and towed to its site.  And the area has one noticeable industry: not far from town is the New York State Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility.  Housed, fittingly, in former mine buildings in a remote area north of Mineville. Which is itself remote.