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Port Royal is a borough in Juniata County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 815 at the 2020 census.[1] [edit] History
Port Royal used to be named Perrysville, after Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. At the time, the Port Royal post office was located in Saint Tammany town, just across the Tuscarora Creek. However, the Pennsylvania Railroad brought increased traffic through the area and prompted a move of the Port Royal post office into Perrysville in 1847. In 1874, the borough took on the name itself and Saint Tammany became known as Old Port. Throughout the history of Port Royal, the general population was almost centered around agriculture. The rural counties within Port Royal include Turbett, Spruce Hill and Milford Townships, otherwise known as the Tuscarora Valley. Port Royal (and Perrysville before it) once was a stop on the old main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Port Royal was, in fact, one of the first towns to be linked to the Pennsylvania Railroad system, as it lay along the Lewistown-to-Harrisburg stretch of the railroad—the first leg constructed after the new railroad was chartered. Located along the Juniata River, many forms of transportation passed through the small town as a result of the river being an essential transportation "highway" before automobiles. However, the Pennsylvania Railroad station no longer exists. Port Royal was also the northern terminus of the Tuscarora Valley Railroad, a narrow-gauge railroad serving southern Juniata and northern Franklin counties. The railroad was decommissioned in the 1930s. From the PRR station during the Gettysburg Campaign of the Civil War, Union scout Stephen W. Pomeroy telegraphed the vital news to Governor Andrew Curtin that Robert E. Lee was concentrating the Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg. This was how state officials learned of this vital intelligence, which Pomeroy had carried for nearly sixty miles from near Lee's headquarters in Chambersburg. He had sewn the message into his belt strap of his pants. [edit] Research Tips
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