212 The Story of The Bronx 



which later developed into some of the principal highways 

 of the county, with such changes in grade and direction as 

 the necessities of wagon roads required — the Albany and the 

 Boston post-roads, and the Kingsbridge Road leading through 

 Fordham, as well as Eastchester Avenue connecting the 

 parishes of St. Peter's and St. Paul's. 



The Albany Post-road was opened to the Sawkill, or Saw- 

 mill River, in Yonkers, as early as 1669. The traveller, having 

 arrived at the end of Manhattan Island over the old Kings- 

 bridge Road from Harlem, would cross Spuyten Duyvil 

 Creek by the ford, the ferry, or the bridge and thus land on 

 the island of Paparinemo. Passage up the west side of the 

 marsh was impossible, and in ancient days the task of rilling 

 it in for a roadway would have been too costly to have been 

 undertaken. The traveller, therefore, turned to his right 

 through the marsh or, later, over the causeway built by Archer, 

 Verveelen, Betts, Tippett, Hadden, and the inhabitants of 

 Fordham, and found himself in that village. Here he would 

 turn to the left along the base of Tetard's Hill, and so north 

 on the higher and dryer ground on the eastern side of the 

 marsh. The road crossed Tippett's Brook about a mile 

 from the bridge, near the Van Cortlandt station of the Putnam 

 Railroad, and then swung westward in front of and below the 

 Van Cortlandt mansion to the western side of the valley, up 

 which it passed to Yonkers. After passing through the lands 

 of John Hadden, it came within the manor of Philipseburgh, 

 and the manor-lord thus became responsible for its mainte- 

 nance. In fact, as the road led to his toll bridge, he probably 

 maintained the lower part of it as well. The ancient road, 

 or the greater part of it, still remains and is known to the 

 residents of this section as the old Albany Post-road. It 

 could not have been more than a trail at first; but later the 



