New York Roads - Fort Hunter/Tribes Hill

Fort Hunter and Tribes Hill


Railroad St. WB starts at an embossed sign and ends at an abutment at Schoharie Creek, with a pier still sticking out in the river. This may have been original NY 5S, which would have crossed the railroad tracks to enter Fort Hunter and then again on the other side of the creek. To the south in the third photo is the old railroad bridge, which was converted to roadway use in an emergency - see the Temporary I-90 page linked at bottom.


Between the original bridge that had been here and the original Erie Canal (as seen in the second photograph), the river now crests over a horizontal line. My guess is the Canal had more to do with it - boats entered Schoharie Creek here, immediately upstream of the Mohawk River, and had to enter the next section of canal on the west side of the creek without getting dragged downstream.


Looking east in the same spot at the old path of the original canal, which was built right through a historic chapel. That was a terrible waste of the chapel and the old Fort Hunter, though, for the reason I'm about to show you:


Shortly after the old buildings were destroyed and the new canal opened, traffic became so voluminous that the Erie Canal had to be rebuilt. Downstream from the previous photos (i.e. even closer to the Mohawk River), the Canal was rerouted over a new aqueduct. Now the Mohawk River is officially part of the Canal, and the aqueduct is in various stages of collapse. The aqueduct itself has become a historic structure in its own right.


Main St. in Fort Hunter northbound across Lock 12 of the Erie Canal (and the Mohawk River) to Tribes Hill. You can see that it was built in 1910 and it even has a county milemarker (27 is the route on the top line, 1.1 is the mileage on the bottom).


SB leaving the bridge in the other direction. Fort Hunter is not its own town, but is part of Florida. "Town of" is necessary here. There's another florida on NY 94.


The northern end of Main St. at former NY 5, and then old 5 WB. These signs have clearly gotten worn with age, but they're also not the originals. The outlines are, though, as is the N.Y. STATE HIGHWAY text, so apparently Montgomery County filed them down and either repainted the messages or changed them to suit the county's needs.


The county missed the EB direction of old 5, though, so here you have the original text with only the top of the sign cut off. Obviously, the signs were remounted or else that scissors job wouldn't have been necessary.


Old cable guiderail through old concrete posts on Main St. SB facing away from the intersection.


But wait, there's more! Act now and see what appear to be Route 80 shields. They're squares, not in NY shields, but they may reflect some primitive route numbering scheme (either state or county). They may also be milemarkers, although generally the same milepost won't be repeated dozens or even hundreds of feet apart. The first, toppled post is just east of Main St., and the second is two driveways to the west. Both these and the next one are on the north side of old 5 (Mohawk Drive).


The final post, one driveway to the west of Main St., first looking south with Mohawk Dr. in the background and then showing the WB and EB faces, respectively. This makes me think all the more it's some sort of route shield, perhaps indicating that NY 80 originally went west and south at this intersection. If this is the case, 80 would have multiplexed with NY 5 for 20 miles before entering Fort Hunter. I won't speculate further until I can get confirmation on why these are here.

To current NY 5
To current NY 5S
Temporary I-90 in Fort Hunter
Into Montgomery County
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