Old Roads



 

Heading down 9W this morning on the way to Selkirk, I got to thinking about the way the roads used to line up in this part of town.  Consider this 1893 map.  Notice the three red stars. 

The top one marks the intersection of Lasher Road and Route 9W (near today's Becker School), the middle one marks where Maple Avenue (Rt 396) makes the turn at Beaver Dam Road and the bottom one marks where Pictuay Road meets today's Old Ravena Road.  Notice the rectangular shape to the left of the word Selkirk.  Are you with me so far? Ok, below is a map from 2007 with the same three spots marked.  Can you find that rectangle?

 

 



Next time you are out and about in the southern part of town, take a ride on some of these old roads.  It is hard to imagine that at one time they were the main drag.  There are some lovely old homes on Lasher.  This morning I went down Old Ravena Road with the thought of finding the location of Selkirk's one room school.  No sign of that, but, there is a lovely old Victorian that I had no idea was there. If you keep going over into the Town of Coeymans, just over the Coeymans Creek is the Tobias TenEyck House. It was built about 1758 and is on the National Register. 

If you would like to look at the original USGS map from 1893 plus ones from 1927 and 1950 visit this website:  http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/Albany.htm  Just for fun, switch between them and Google maps.

Feel like exploring some more old roads?  Here's a list of all of them (except for Olde Coach which I don't think is really old anyway.) They are Old Glenmont Road, Old Kenwood Road, Old Oakwood Road, Old Quarry Road, Old Ravena Road, Old Road, Old River Road, Old Route 9W,  Old School Road and Old Town Road.