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Historic Highways and Byways

Modest trails put Long Island on the path to a network of thoroughfares.

By Sylvia Adcock | Staff Writer

The path leads through dense woods, overgrown with thickets and brambles, not far from the rush of traffic on Route 25A. Thick-trunked trees form a canopy overhead, with only splashes of sunlight allowed to break through.

Stony Brook neighbors know it as the old stagecoach trail, and indeed it was. Here, cutting through the northwest corner of the state university campus, is the original path of North Country Road, laid out in the early 1700s on an Indian trail as one of three main roads that crossed Long Island. The main roadway, today known as Route 25A, was moved north in the 1800s when the railroad came through. So modern touches like asphalt never marred this abandoned path that still holds the footprints of history.

The story of roads on Long Island begins with Indian footpaths that were only two or three feet wide, often following animal trails that led to water. The first settlers followed the footpaths and some became roads.

At first, the roads were merely paths, often called cartways, cleared to connect the villages with surrounding farms. Old town records are full of accounts of new paths being laid out, sometimes cutting through a farmer's land.

In some cases, the landowners took pains to make sure that the traffic wouldn't disturb them. East Hampton Town records show that in 1668, Stephen Hand allowed the town to put a cart path through his land, but he specified that it could not be used to drive cattle, only for horses or ox "in the yoake." Today, Stephen Hands Path, long paved, still can be found on the map stretching north from Montauk Highway in the community of Hardscrabble.

Most of these early roads were local and did nothing to help travelers get from one end of the Island to the other. That changed in 1703 when the General Assembly of New York appointed highway commissioners in Kings, Queens and Suffolk Counties to lay out, clear and preserve public highways "to be and continue forever." These roads were to be four rods wide -- about 18 feet -- and their surface was only the dirt packed down by travelers. It was not until the next century that roads began to be improved with planks and with drainage ditches on either side.

These first true through-routes were often referred to as the "king's highway." The network began at the tiny Brooklyn ferry settlement where boats crossed the East River to Manhattan; part of the road later became Fulton Avenue. It stretched to Flatbush and branched off to the thriving village of Jamaica. Eventually the road went on to Hempstead.

The 1703 law declared that road repairs would be the responsibility of those people whose lands the roads traversed. The highway commissioners could decide if fences had to be destroyed, or they could allow "swinging gates" that would permit travelers to pass through.

Even then, there was squabbling between travelers and landowners. Travelers complained that the road was too narrow, while landowners complained that it was taking too much of their property. In 1721, court complaints were made against a group of Brooklyn landowners for encroaching on the roadway. Jan Rapalje and Hand Bergen, two of those accused, replied that they were no worse than their neighbors. "If all our neighbours are willing to make ye road according to law," they wrote, they were willing to do the same, "being they are not willing to suffer more than their neighbours."

Rapalje and Bergen appealed to the General Assembly, and soon another law was passed that helped compensate the landowners. If a majority of people in a town "should adjudge that part of the road near to the ferry was too narrow or inconvenient," they could ask the sheriff to summon a jury of 12. The jury could appraise the land that would be used to widen the road, and the amount would be levied and paid to the owners.

The through-routes spread from Brooklyn, and by 1733 three well-traveled roads had been established across the Island. They were known as North Country Road, Middle Country Road and South Country Road. Today, the name South Country Road remains on parts of Montauk Highway, as does Middle Country Road on parts of Jericho Turnpike. North Country Road followed much of the path of Route 25A.

The roads became more important when the first mail route was established. Before 1764, East End residents got their mail delivered by boat from Connecticut and others had to travel to New York to get their mail. But the postal route, a 239-mile circuit, changed that. A Scottsman named Dunbar delivered mail every two weeks, traveling to the East End along the North Shore and returning on the South Shore.

But there were no road signs, and it was easy to get lost. Traveling by water across Long Island Sound was still preferred. In fact, the first map of the Island to show roadways did not appear until 1750. It shows a few lines stretching from the ferry at Brooklyn to Jamaica and Hempstead, where the road branches -- one road continuing along the middle of the Island and another heading north to Smithtown.

The English mapmaker didn't name the roads, and he drew the lines faintly, almost as if he wasn't sure they'd stay.

In Stony Brook, the path once used by Indians and stagecoaches is now used by joggers and cyclists. In a sense, it has returned to its roots, worn down by the tread of those who may not realize history is under their feet.