The Great Genesee Road: The History and Evolution of New York State’s Route 5

Today we call most of it New York Route 5. Over the centuries it has been called the Iroquois Trail, Genesee Road, Mohawk and Seneca Turnpike, Buffalo Road. In The Great Genesee Road, author Richard Figiel takes readers on a historical journey tracing the first road to penetrate west into New York State, exploring the artifacts and stories of centuries along the way from the Hudson River to Lake Erie.

Many centuries ago, it was a Native-American path binding the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Then the trail became the principal overland conduit of the 17th and 18th-century North American fur trade. The Dutch turned the footpath into a cart track. The British and French turned it into a battleground. After the Revolution, the first homesteaders came to know it as the Genesee Road, leading them to a land of milk and honey in the western Genesee River Valley.

Rambling across New York’s pastoral countryside from Schenectady, through Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and ending in Buffalo as its ＂Main Street＂, Route 5 travels through layers of history and stories of a restless, young America. Featuring rich storytelling, generous illustrations, historical and contemporary photographs, and detailed maps old and new, The Great Genesee Road is a fascinating trip through the making of New York State, the expansion of a young country, and a piece of history that readers can still explore today.

Richard Figiel is a writer with special interest in New York State history and preservation. His writing has covered every corner of the state and appeared in Yankee, Sierra, Adirondack Life, and Wine & Spirits, among others. For his most recent book on the oldest road in New York State, A Road Through Time, he walked the length of Manhattan Island and traveled the rest of the old route up the Hudson Valley by foot, bicycle, and car. He is also the author of Circle of the Vines: The Story of New York Wine, which grew out of his time as a winegrower on Seneca Lake.