Catskill Turnpike: Difference between revisions

[[Image:Catskill Turnpike.png|645px]]The '''Catskill Turnpike''', also known as the '''''Susquehanna Turnpike''''', and sometimes identified with the '''''Forbidden Path'''''<ref name="HBG">''Handybook for Genealogists: United States of America, 10th ed.'' (Draper, Utah: Everton Pub., 2002), 849. [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/50140092 WorldCat entry];  {{FHL|1049485|item|disp=FHL Book 973 D27e 2002}}.</ref> started on the Hudson River at Catskill in Greene County, skirted the north side of the Catskill Mountains and worked its way westward through upstate New York to Unadilla (formerly Wattle's Ferry) on the Susquehanna River in 1804. From there New York State extended it to Ithaca in 1806, and Bath about 1808. Later extensions not normally called the Catskill Turnpike took travelers into Erie County, New York, or followed part of the old Indian Forbidden Path and beyond to Erie, Pennsylvania. Each end of the Catskill Turnpike connected to other important migration pathways. The length of the Catskill Turnpike from Catskill to Bath was about 207 miles (333 km).<ref>Route length in miles and kilometers calculated in MapQuest.com at http://www.mapquest.com/.</ref> For the route from Bath to Buffalo add 102 miles (165 km). From Bath to Erie, Pennsylvania is an additional 169 miles (272 km).<br><br>  

'''''Overlapping trail names.''''' The original pathway from Springfield, Massachusetts to Unadilla, New York was called the ''Catskill Road''. When the legislature upgraded the Catskill-to-Unadilla section they called it the ''Susquehanna Turnpike''. But when the turnpike was extended west to Bath the whole west-side-of-the-river road was renamed the ''Catskill Turnpike'' (or ''Bath Turnpike''). At the same time the east side of the river was renamed the ''Ancram Turnpike''.<ref>Almyra E. Morgan, ''The Catskill Turnpike: a Wilderness Path'' (Ithaca, NY : DeWitt Historical Society of Tompkins County, 1971), 5. Tompkins County Public Library [http://tcpl.org/local-history/documents/nys-cny/Catskill_Turnpike.pdf digital pdf copy]; {{WorldCat|63600251|disp=At various libraries (WorldCat)}}.</ref> During the same period, the legislature commissioned the upgrade of a different, connected road starting farther to the south at Kingston (on the Hudson River). It went west to Bainbridge (near Unadilla) and was called the ''Ulster and Delaware Turnpike'' (or ''Jericho'', or ''Esopus Turnpike'')<ref name="Gall" /> Also, in 1804 twice a week mail service was started from Catskill, New York, partly following the Catskill Turnpike but to Athens, Pennsylvania, the eastern end of the Seneca Indians' ''Forbidden Path''. This probably explains why the Catskill Turnpike is also associated with the Forbidden Path.<ref name="Ancr" />  

'''''Stagecoaches and drovers.''''' Stagecoaches usually took four days and nights to drive from Ithaca to Catskill. This service continued year around even in the snow. Some years the traffic was so heavy two passenger coaches were hitched together followed by a baggage wagon. Before the railroads, cattle drovers also commonly used the turnpike to take their herds a few miles a day to market usually in Dutchess County.<ref name="Gall" />  

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[[Category:Migration_Routes]] [[Category:US_Migration_Trails_and_Roads]] [[Category:New_York]] [[Category:Albany_County,_New_York]] [[Category:Schenectady_County,_New_York]] [[Category:Herkimer_County,_New_York]] [[Category:Oneida_County,_New_York]] [[Category:Oswego_County,_New_York]] [[Category:Madison_County,_New_York]] [[Category:Onondaga_County,_New_York]] [[Category:Cayuga_County,_New_York]] [[Category:Wayne_County,_New_York]] [[Category:Monroe_County,_New_York]] [[Category:Genesee_County,_New_York]] [[Category:Niagara_County,_New_York]]