Albany’s First Road Marks Another Milestone

By Don Rittner

The year 2005 marks the 30^th anniversary of the erection of 16 historic markers along Albany’s famed King’s Highway. The King’s Highway was the first road between 17^th century Albany and Schenectady linking the Hudson Valley to the Mohawk Valley.

Although neglected in most histories, the three hundred year old highway was the major trade, transportation, and military route between the two valleys until 1800 and played a major role in shaping the settlement of New York State.

Native Americans carried furs down the Mohawk Valley over a series of trails through the sandy Pine Barrens (called the Pine Bush locally) to Albany. Enterprising traders with thoughts of purchasing pelts at a minimum would wait for fur carrying Indians on these trails, buy the furs, and then resell them for a higher profit. Regulations were passed to prohibit trading outside the city gates to stop this unfair practice, but the wood runners continued and were often cited for their activities on the old path to Schenectady.

About 1663, two years after the founding of Schenectady, the “Mohagg Path” was widened from an earlier Native trail into a wagon road. Albanians called it the Schenectady Path; Schenectadians called it the Albany Road. It later was simply called the King’s Highway after the English conquest of the region during the later part of the 17^th century.

The winding 16-mile route crossed the Pine Bush, an unusual inland Pine Barrens environment, characterized by a gently rolling topography with sand dunes and a forest of pitch pine and scrub oak. From the Pine Bush, and along the old road, nearby inhabitants obtained timber for building, firewood for warmth, and wood for stockades. The desert like appearance of the area impressed many travelers and depressed others on their long journey between the valleys.

In 1680, Dankers and Sluyter, two missionaries traveling to Schenectady, recorded that they “rode over a fine, sandy, cart road, through a woods of nothing but beautiful evergreen, or fir trees, but a light and barren soil.” Timothy Dwight, president of Yale, passing through the region in 1798 expressed the opposite view. Dwight remarked that he “passed over a hard pine plane and presented nothing agreeable. The plain is uninhabited, the soil lean, and the road indifferent.”

As trade and travel increased, several families left the protected custody of the stockaded villages and settled along the King’s highway. Few and far between, these pioneers such as Isaac Truax and his son operated their farms as taverns, refreshing weary travelers with food, drink, and lodging. Many interesting legends and tales surround the taverns and at one time there were taverns along the route every three to four miles. Truax was reported to be a Tory and threatened with arrest. The Seven-mile house at the Verreberg was a British outpost during the French and Indian Wars, only to become a caretaker’s house for the nearby Six Mile Waterworks in the 19^th century.

Between 1690 and 1760, passengers traveling the old road were escorted by a patrol of Albany militiamen, after reports of ambushes and scalping. The road served as a military route since the intersection of the Hudson River with the Mohawk was blocked for boat entry by the impressive Cohoes Falls near Waterford. The King’s Highway also became the point of western expansion with roads splitting off to the west. The Palatine Germans began cutting a route to the Schoharie County near the Six Mile House in 1710. The villages and towns of Guilderland, Guilderland Center, Altamont, Knox, Gallupville, and Schoharie grew up along the western route. The Albany Glass Works, one of the first post revolutionary war industries was built along the Palatine route in 1783 and scores of settlers traveled over the State Road, another spur off the King’s Highway, constructed in 1792 near the tavern of Isaac Truax Jr.

The Kings highway did not loose its significance until the early 1800s when the Great Western and Albany Schenectady turnpikes were created making it easier to move goods and people between the valleys. The construction of the Erie Canal, and Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, which ran close to the Kings Highway in sections, further nullified the importance of this road.

Today, the State Thruway, constructed in 1953, runs along the exact route for 6000 feet through the Pine Bush, and the current configuration of Albany Street in Guilderland from Old State Road into downtown Schenectady is the paved portion of this ancient highway. A mile long section in original dirt condition still exists in the Pine Bush preserve.

In 1975, 16 cast iron markers were erected along the entire route and this year all of them will be repainted.