Great Genessee Road

The Great Seneca Turnpike

May 7, 2025 by Richard Williams 3 Comments

Today’s State Route 5 crosses New York State from Buffalo to Albany and parallels state Route 20 and the New York State Thruway. The part of Route 5 between Utica and Canandaigua in Ontario County, some 105 miles, is still called the Seneca Turnpike.

Originally a Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) path, the route has been referred to in various accounts as the Great Genesee Road, the Great Genesee Trail, the Genesee Turnpike, the Great Seneca Turnpike or Seneca Road. Previously it had been known as the part of the Great Indian Trail or Iroquois Trail. [Read more…] about The Great Seneca Turnpike

Early Upstate New York Roads: Some History

February 5, 2025 by Richard Williams 2 Comments

What is now New York State saw multitudes of American settlers moving inland from the Atlantic seaboard, especially those “locusts of the east” from New England. Traveling long distances overland before the 20th century was however, difficult to say the least.

In the 1600s their movement was constrained by topography, and settlements were limited to areas in the Hudson and Mohawk valleys previously inhabited or improved by Indigenous People. Some Indigenous portage trails were described by the earliest settlers as wide paths that a capable ox team and wagon could manage. [Read more…] about Early Upstate New York Roads: Some History

The Great Cayuga Lake Long Bridge: Beams & Trestles

January 27, 2025 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

Into the waning decade of the 1700s, only fords, ferries, or makeshift timber bridges, all highly vulnerable to frequent destruction by ice and flood, were used to cross streams. As Americans in greater numbers began moving west to more remote parts of New York and Pennsylvania, carpenters and entrepreneurial inventors began envisioning new designs but still using posts, beams, and trestle bents for crossing narrow and slow-moving streams in order to expedite the movement of people and goods as well as to make a profit. None of these earliest timber bridges were covered with a roof and siding.

These early timber bridges were precursor structures to the arches and trusses that soon followed, making it possible to span broader streams with stronger structures, many of which heralded the arrival of the covered timber bridge era. [Read more…] about The Great Cayuga Lake Long Bridge: Beams & Trestles

The Great Genesee Road: A History Travel Guide

September 27, 2024 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

In 1794 the state legislature authorized the Great Genesee Road from Fort Schuyler (now Utica) to Canawaugus (once one of the most populous of the Seneca villages, now in Livingston County) to help settlers reach the New Military Tract in Central New York where nearly two million acres of land was set aside to compensate Revolutionary War veterans. Today we call most of it New York Route 5. [Read more…] about The Great Genesee Road: A History Travel Guide

Great Genessee Road

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