James Averill Jr. was the son of James Averill (Sr.) and grandson to Henry K. (H.K.) Averill (Sr.) of Plattsburgh. He went to school in Champlain and became an insurance agent in 1869 at the age of 17 (a job that he continued with into the 1900s). After 10 years of selling insurance, he entered the canal boat industry in 1879 with lawyer, judge, investor and brother-in-law Sylvester Alonzo Kellogg. The firm was called the “Kellogg and Averill” boat yard and was located at the end of River Street in Champlain. This boat yard would become one of the most productive boat yards in the Champlain Valley with the building of boats of all types into the early 1900s.
When Kellogg died in 1904, John W. Clark became Averill’s partner in the boatyard business (Clark is buried in Glenwood Cemetery). James Averill Jr. was vice president and treasurer of the foundry and president of the Averill boatyard for 30 years. He became president of the First National Bank of Champlain in 1887 after Timothy Hoyle’s death the previous year and remained in that position till his death in 1917. Hoyle is buried in Glenwood Cemetery.
During the Tercentenary celebrations along Lake Champlain in 1909, Averill tied together several barges to create a floating stage for an Indian Pageant. The barges were towed to all of the major ports on the lake. The Indians gave performances in front of thousands of spectators, including a performance in Rouses Point. Many photos of the pageant are seen in historic archives and sold on e-Bay as postcards.
On February 14, 1883, an abandoned iron foundry in Champlain was sold by Timothy Hoyle to 31-year-old James Averill Jr. and Sylvester Alonzo Kellogg. The new foundry became the “Champlain Foundry and Machine Shops.” The firm manufactured water wheels, circular saws and steam engines. The company then experimented with making book binding equipment. This caught the attention of the Sheridan brothers of New York City who needed a foundry to build book binding equipment. In 1887, Averill sold a half interest of his iron works to the Sheridans and then sold the full interest. The firm became known as the “T.W. and C.B. Sheridan Co.,” and later, the Sheridan Iron Works. Averill continued to work at Sheridan and was its vice-president and treasurer when he died in 1917. In the early 1960s, Sheridan Iron Works was bought by Harris Intertype Corp. and later became Harris Graphics. Harris closed its Champlain business in 1987, 100 years after Averill sold it to the Sheridans.
In 1899, James Averill Jr. married Grace Stanley Mills of Montreal and had five children, including Stanley (who lived in Champlain), Jeannette, Elizabeth, James Kent and John Platt Averill. He was a member of the St. John’s Episcopal Church in Champlain.
James Averill Jr. was one of Champlain’s most successful, self-made businessmen of the late 1800s. He was a person who could successfully manage multiple businesses and was a respected citizen of the village. A newspaper article from 1957 called him a “veritable spark plug.” Hundreds of workers and their families in Champlain benefited from employment in his businesses.