HISTORY

From 1902 to 1948, Accord Depot faithfully served New York, Ontario & Western Railway passengers.

In the nineteenth century, the hamlet of Accord was known as Port Jackson. Located along the bustling Delaware and Hudson Canal, Port Jackson contained a small hub of stores, hotels and a lumberyard, and its primary businesses were farming, quarrying of millstone and bluestone, and milling of corn, wheat, lumber and paper.

In 1898, the Delaware and Hudson Canal was closed, as canals were by then already considered relics of pre-industrial times, with transportation of goods moving largely to rail. As a result, the Port Jackson townspeople lobbied the capital for a new name, and when Albany could not come to an accord about the new name, “Accord” itself – pronounced ACK-ord – was chosen.

In 1901, The New York, Ontario and Western Railway (NYO&W) expanded into the area with a new branch running from Ellenville to Kingston along the former canal towpath.

In 1902, the Accord depot opened for business and a period of prosperity began, in which trains delivered goods from local farms, mills and quarries to New York City, and transported passengers from New York City to over 250 local vacation resorts. 

The Accord depot, designed by the firm Jackson, Rosencrans and Canfield in 1902, is a typical example of a rustic, turn-of-the-century American depot featuring front and rear dormers, clapboard siding, freight room, and station agent’s second floor accommodation.  

For the thirty years from 1918 to 1948, Mike Palmer was the hard-working station agent at Accord depot, and, for a good deal of that period, he lived upstairs with his wife Anna and their children Doris and Pierce. Known to everyone in the community, Mike supervised incoming and outgoing passenger and freight traffic, sold tickets, handled incoming and outgoing mail, generated manifestos and bills of lading, and typed thousands of Western Union telegrams. Mike retired just as passenger service was winding down in 1948 and freight service ended in 1956, when the NYO&W went bankrupt.