Albany Post Road

Here's something leftover from the early colonial era in the Hudson Valley that many people drive past every day, but I suspect have no idea what it is.  It's located on "Route 9" across from what used to be the IBM County Club in the town of Poughkeepsie. If you look carefully, carved in the red sandstone is the number 77, below that, the word Miles, then New, and then York.  Yes, at this point, you are standing 77 miles North of City Hall in lower Manhattan!

Mile Marker 77

It turns out, these markers have been left behind by the Post Office. The very first post office.  Specifically, by Benjamin Franklin, the first United States Post Master General.  He marked this path from Manhattan to Albany as a postal route.  Mile marker 0 is located in City Hall in Manhattan.

Remember his famous Kite flying during an electrical storm?

Franklin led a remarkable life.

Franklin was a noted polymath.

He study ocean currents and was the first to observe and name the Gulf stream.

He was one of the few proponents of  Huygan's wave theory of light in the 1700's.

He was prolific inventor: the lighting rod, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses, the urinary catheter.

He is considered the first American to play chess.

So today, if you travel along US9 from New York City to Albany, you are traveling on what was once called the Albany Post Road.  Franklin had these markers installed so the fee for mailing letters could be based on how far the carrier traveled to make the delivery.

First US postage Stamp

Before the Post Road was used for Mail, it was called the Queens road after Queen Anne, and the later the Kings highway during the reign of King Goerge I & II..  During the early period native Indians (The Wappingers & The Wicopee) travel by foot simply referred it as "The Path".  Because that's what it was.  A dirt path through the wilderness.    

Fortunately for us, when Franklin Roosevelt was Governor of New York in the early 1930s, he passed a law that gave maintenance of these markers to the State Highway Department.  When he became president, he commissioned the Dutches County historical society to construct the stone structures around them to further protect the markers.  (To prevent them from becoming decorations on peoples patios)

This postcard is a pastoral view of the Albany Post Road looking south from Fishkill, NY.  Up until the late1950's, Dutchess county was still mostly farmland.  It has since been developed for other purposes.

Albany Post Road in Fishkill 1906

Is that the Gap Factory, Toll Brothers, Walmart and Dutchess Mall I see in the distance?

This section of the Albany post road is probably more traveled then BF ever could have imagined.   

Next up, Mason-Dixon Line.... JK :-)