TheAlbany Post Road was apost road – a road used formail delivery – in theU.S. state ofNew York. It connectedNew York City andAlbany along the east side of theHudson River, a service now performed byU.S. Route 9 (US 9).
The Post Road followed the originalWickquasgeck Trail, carved into the brush ofManhattan by itsNative American inhabitants.[1] This trail originally snaked through swamps and rocks along the length of Manhattan Island. Upon the arrival of theDutch, the trail soon became the main road through the island fromNieuw Amsterdam at the southern tip. The Dutch explorer and entrepreneurDavid Pietersz. de Vries gives the first mention of it in his journal for the year 1642 ("the Wickquasgeck Road over which the Indians passed daily"). The Dutch named the road "Heerestraat".[2]
In 1669, the provincial government ofNew York designated a postal route betweenNew York City andAlbany, the colony's two most important settlements at the time. It was little more than a narrow path in many places, following old trails used by the Wiccoppe andWappinger tribes. Stagecoaches headed north originally started from Cortlandt Street inlower Manhattan; later the starting point was moved up toBroadway and Twenty-first Street.[3]
In 1703, the legislative body provided for the postal road to be a "public and common general highway" along the same route, starting inKingsbridge, Bronx and ending at a ferry landing in present-dayRensselaer. It was called the Queen's Road, afterQueen Anne.[4]
The King's Bridge was built as atoll bridge in 1693, byFrederick Philipse, a wealthy merchant and major landholder in the Bronx and Westchester. The bridge, the first connecting Manhattan with the mainland, spanned the formerSpuyten Duyvil Creek at what today is Kingsbridge Avenue.[5] At Kingsbridge the Post Road split with the eastern spur heading to Boston, and the northern branch heading to Albany.
The Albany Post Road, still called "Broadway", continues toVan Cortlandt Park, through what was once called the "Vale of Yonkers", and passes Greystone, the former estate ofSamuel J. Tilden, now part ofUntermyer Park. The village ofArdsley takes its name from the estate ofCyrus W. Field, who owned 780 acres (3.2 km2) of land lying between Broadway (Dobbs Ferry) and the Sprain Brook (Greenburgh) named Ardsley Park. He had named Ardsley Park after the English birthplace of his immigrant ancestor, Zechariah Field (East Ardsley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England), who immigrated to the U.S.
Just north ofWashington Irving'sSunnyside is theOld Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow featured in his "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820). Running concurrent with U.S. Route 9, the Albany Post Road drops the name "Broadway" as it approaches the village ofOssining. In early autumn 1777, GeneralIsrael Putnam retired along the Post Road in the face of SirHenry Clinton's advance onPeekskill.[3]
The rough route was as follows:
Minor old alignments exist all along the current through route.