Breesport, NY

Breesport is a hamlet and census-designated place in the town of Horseheads, on the eastern side of Chemung County. The 2020 census counted 629 residents. Its story begins with two log cabins recorded by 1816, followed by settlers from Orange County, Connecticut, and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The Breese family gave the place its name; Ulysses Breese established the post office in 1853, and village plots were surveyed the following year. Those dates show a settlement taking shape through family networks, small commerce, and transportation.

Industry and rail turned Breesport into a regional working place during the late nineteenth century. Joseph Rodbourn built a steam-powered mill in 1857 that produced three million feet of lumber per year, then a grist mill in 1860; he also built the Rodbourn House and helped fund the Utica, Ithaca and Elmira Railroad with Ezra Cornell. The railroad began service in 1872, and its last train passed through in 1938. Fires and the loss of rail erased much of that industrial landscape, yet Route 223, the post office, churches, and the Horseheads Central School District still place Breesport within the Horseheads area.