Port Royal, Pennsylvania
borough in central Juniata County, Pennsylvania
Port Royal is a borough in Juniata County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 815 at the 2020 census.
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.
The public source identifies “Port Royal, Pennsylvania” as borough in central Juniata County, Pennsylvania. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Port, Royal and Pennsylvania.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Port Royal, Pennsylvania”, the useful work is to connect “borough in central Juniata County, Pennsylvania” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1183349. VIAF identifies the subject as 151466639. The Library of Congress control number is n2002124560. Authority coordinates are 40.533, -77.388. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1847 and 1874.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Port Royal, Pennsylvania” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.