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History of Orange County
Roads and Turnpikes
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     We think no reader of this paper a hundred years hence (if it should live so long) will impute negligence or want of good intention on this subject to the men of this generation, when they examine the number of charters granted by State authority to build and construct turnpike roads in this County.  Nay, he will wonder at their energy and public spirit, and admire their liberality and patriotism.  Knowing the extent of the County limits, he will find that if one half of them were laid out and worked from east to west through the County, and the other half from north to south, at the distance of three miles apart, they would cover the whole area like a checker-board, in blocks three miles square, and exclaim, to the honor of this generation,” there was no necessity for other public roads in those days.”  True, one-third of these turnpikes have never been worked, and some that have are abandoned as unproductive, and placed on the town list, among public highways;—till, that does not destroy the force and point of our remark, which warn intended to show good intention and commendable enterprise on the part of our fellow citizens of Orange. Without further remark, the following is the list referred to, and date of charter:

1800—Orange Turnpike.
1801—The Newburgh and Cochecton Turnpike.
              New Windsor and Blooming Grove.
1804—Highland.
1805—Newburgh and Chenango.
1806—The Orange Turnpike.
1808—Newburgh and New Windsor. The Middletown.
                         Ulster and Orange Branch.
1809—Minisink and Montgomery.
                         Goshen and Minisink.
                         New Windsor and Cornwall.
                         Dunderberg and Clove.
            1810—Warwick and Minisink.
                         Newburgh and Sullivan.
                         Newburgh and Plattekill.
 1812—Goshen and West Town.
                         Mount Hope and Lumberland.
                         Merrit’s Island.
                         Bloomingburgh and Goshen.
            1816—Snake Hill.
                         Blooming Grove and Grey Court.
1818—Florida and White Oak Island.
1819—The Clove.
1823—Goshen and Monroe.
1824—Monroe and Haverstraw.
1828—Hudson River and Hudson and Delaware Canal and R. R.
     Roads are the great arteries of intercourse between and through the diversified localities of the country, and not only promote intercourse and enable the residents to transact business of necessity and pleasure with convenience, but an eminent degree contribute, by furnishing the means of easy and friendly association, to soften down disparities of character and manners, and assimilate all to a common standard to improvement and elevation.  The want of good roads is a national bane in all these respects, over two-thirds of the surface of the globe.  Roads answer the same great purpose and have the same happy results in harmonizing, civilizing and polishing the character and manners of the various settlements of a country, that external commerce has on the different nations of the earth who participate in conducting it.  As a general rule we remark, that when roads are made bridges are built.  At an early period, perhaps two hundred years ago, when this County was without one white inhabitant, except those now referred to, covered with a dense and unbroken wood and in possession of the native Indians, there was a good traveled road constructed from beyond the Delaware River, in Pennsylvania, to Kingston, then Esopus, in Ulster Co., in this State, one hundred miles in length.  The road was made while Holland owned this country, which it ceased to do in 1664.  Then the objects for which it was originally made were broken up by the transfer and ceased, and the miners who built it probably left the country.  This was executed by a company of miners from Holland, who at that period came to Ulster County, wandered along the Valley of the Mamakating to what was then called the Minisink country, extending along the Delaware for thirty or forty miles on each side, in pursuit of the precious metals of some kind.  Here they found what they wanted and went to work.  Others in their train followed them, located and permanently settled on the choice lowlands of the river banks.  This road must have cost the settlers vast labor and expense, when we consider the unsettled condition of the country through which it ran, the few that must have executed the work, the time consumed in doing it, and the limited means in possession.  There may possibly have been a scattering settlement along the line of the route, which is very uncertain; but those who constructed it must have resided at the two ends of the road.  This highway was continued as a market road to Esopus for many years, and until the Delaware river was made navigable by clearing out Foul Rift, when the trade of the settlement changed from Esopus by the road to Philadelphia by the, river.  All things considered, this was one of the greatest achievements ever accomplished by early settlers in this or any other country, and was the first road of that length built in the United States, and proves the hardy, persevering and indomitable character of these heroic men.