King’s Highway

The King’s Highway

“The Kings Highway” is a legendary term that has been used to describe any of the country roads out of colonial Albany that may have been built by the British army during the French and Indian War. Albany to the VerberghHowever, it most often refers to the main route through the “Pine Bush” from Albany to Schenectady.

This overland thoroughfare connecting the Hudson and the Mohawk was in existence from the earliest days of the community and was first used by Native American hunters bringing their furs to Beverwyck and then Albany.

Until the mid-18th century, the Kings Highway was little more than a path through the woods. the Kings Highway But it was improved dramatically by British and provincial soldiers during the last of the colonial wars. After the war, many new settlers were travelling west from Albany over this road. By that time, the western parts of it were maintained under contract with the Albany city government.

On the Albany end, the Kings Highway began at the Schenectady gate of the stockade and continued uphill and into the pine barrens along the route of today’s Washington Avenue.

via King’s Highway.

 

Beverwyck

Beverwyck

The Eendracht at Beverwyck – 1656Beverwyck is the popular and mythical name given to the community of fur traders that first emerged along the river to the north of Fort Orange during the 1640s. The name came into official use in 1652 when the Dutch West India Company established a judicial jurisdiction for the land north of the trading post/fort. That act began a legacy of home rule for Albany that was primarily responsible for its development into a pre-urban center. Immediately following, the first houselots were parcelled out. By the end of the decade, a log palisade had enclosed the settlement.

via Beverwyck.

—–

Became Albany, New York.

– CAA

 

Schenectady, on Mohawk River, New York

Schenectady

The village and then town of Schenectady emerged from a patent to farm on the Great Flats of the Mohawk River originally granted by the Dutch in 1661. It was located beyond the western border of Rensselaerswyck.

Over the next decade, Schenectady was settled mostly by former Beverwyck residents who sought less competitive opportunities farther away from the community that became Albany in 1664. The complete list of patentees is the subject of some discussion. Union College librarian and historian Jonathan Pearson has compiled a useful list.

Over the next twenty-five years, the original patentees and their descendants built a stockaded town on the south side of the Mohawk River about eighteen miles west of Albany. Schenectady asleep on February 9, 1690 By 1680, a Dutch Reformed church had become established in the community. As part of his initiative to “royalize” the colony, Governor Thomas Dongan granted Schenectady a town patent in 1684 and a community economy began to develop on the Albany model but with a more direct connection to the farms of its immediate environs. Land north of the Mohawk also was deeded and settled. It would be known as “Scotia” (today’s village of Scotia in the town of Glenville – both commemorating the original landholding families).

All this came crashing down when French and Indian raiders destroyed the town on the night of February 9, 1690. The settlement was in shambles with its people killed, captured, or sent fleeing as refugees to the safety of the Albany fort. The Schermerhorns and others temporarily set up homes in Albany. The so-called “Schenectady Massacre” still is one of the “great,” mythical events of the community’s heritage and has been embellished in print, song, and tradition!

via Schenectady.