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Port Jervis is a city located at the confluence of the Neversink and Delaware rivers in western Orange County, New York, United States, north of the Delaware Water Gap. Its population was 8,775 at the 2020 census. The communities of Deerpark, Huguenot, Sparrowbush, and Greenville are adjacent to Port Jervis. Matamoras, Pennsylvania, is across the river and connected by bridge. Montague Township, New Jersey, borders here. The Tri-States Monument, marking the tripoint between New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, lies at the southwestern corner of town.

Port Jervis was part of early industrial history, a point for shipping coal to major markets to the southeast by canal and later by railroads. Its residents had long-distance passenger service by railroad until 1970. The restructuring of railroads resulted in a decline in the city's business and economy.

In the 21st century, from late spring to early fall, many thousands of travelers and tourists pass through Port Jervis on their way to enjoying rafting, kayaking, canoeing and other activities in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area and the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River and the surrounding area.

Port Jervis is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown metropolitan area as well as the larger New York metropolitan area. In August 2008, Port Jervis was named one of "Ten Coolest Small Towns" by Budget Travel magazine.

History

The first fully developed European settlement in the area was established by Dutch and English colonists c.1690, and a land grant of was formalized on October 14, 1697. The settlement was originally known as Mahackamack , after a Lenape word. It was raided and burned in 1779 during the American Revolutionary War, by British and Mohawk forces under the command of Mohawk leader Joseph Brant before the Battle of Minisink. Over the next two decades, residents rebuilt the settlement. They developed more roadways to better connect Mahackamack with the eastern parts of Orange County.

After the Delaware and Hudson Canal was opened in 1828, providing transportation of coal from northeastern Pennsylvania to New York and New England via the Hudson River, trade attracted money and further development to the area. A village was incorporated on May 11, 1853. It was renamed as Port Jervis in the mid-19th century, after John Bloomfield Jervis, chief engineer of the D&H Canal. Port Jervis grew steadily into the 1900s, and on July 26, 1907, it became a city.

Coming of the railroad

The first rail line to run through Port Jervis was the New York & Erie Railroad, which in 1832 was chartered to run from Piermont, New York, on the Hudson River in Rockland County, to Lake Erie. Ground was broken in 1835, but construction was delayed by a nationwide financial panic, and did not start again until 1838. The line was completed in 1851, and the first passenger train &ndash with President Millard Fillmore and former United States Senator Daniel Webster on board &ndash came through the city on May 14. The railroad went through a number of name changes, becoming the Erie Railroad in 1897.

A second railroad, the Port Jervis and Monticello Railroad, later leased to the New York, Ontario and Western Railway (O&W), opened in 1868, running northeast out of the city, and eventually connecting to Kingston, New York, Weehawken, New Jersey and eastern connections.

Like the D&H Canal, the railroads brought new prosperity to Port Jervis in the form of increased trade and investment in the community from the outside. However, the competition by the railroad, which could deliver products faster, hastened the decline of the canal, which ceased operation in 1898. The railroads were the basis of the city's economy for the coming decades. Port Jervis became Erie's division center between Jersey City, New Jersey and Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, and by 1922, 20 passenger trains went through the city every day. More than 2,500 Erie RR employees made their homes there.

The railroads began to decline after the Great Depression. A shift in transportation accelerated after World War II with the federal subsidy of the Interstate Highway System and increased competition from trucking companies. One of the first Class I railroads to shut down was the O&W, on March 29, 1957, leaving Port Jervis totally reliant on the Erie. A few years later, in 1960, the Erie, also on a shaky financial footing, merged with Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad to become the Erie Lackawanna. Railroad restructuring continued and in 1976, the