Albany Post Road

The Albany Post Road was a post road - a road used for mail delivery - in the U.S. state of New York. It connected New York City and Albany along the east side of the Hudson River, a service now performed by U.S. Route 9 (US 9).

The Post Road followed the original the Wickquasgeck Trail, carved into the brush of Manhattan by its Native American inhabitants. This trail originally snaked through swamps and rocks along the length of Manhattan Island. Upon the arrival of the Dutch, the trail soon became the main road through the island from Nieuw Amsterdam at the southern tip. The Dutch explorer and entrepreneur David 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".

In 1669, the provincial government of New York designated a postal route between New York City and Albany, 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 and Wappinger tribes. Stagecoaches headed north originally started from Cortland Street in lower Manhattan; later the starting point was moved up to Broadway and Twenty-first Street.

In 1703, the legislative body provided for the postal road to be a "public and common general highway" along the same route, starting in Kingsbridge, Bronx and ending at a ferry landing in present-day Rensselaer. It was called the Queen's Road, after Queen Anne.

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