Category Archives: Roads

Although Route 44 cuts across only the northern section of New Hartford, it has always been the major road in the region.  Or perhaps, it might be better to say that a roughly east-west road running between Hartford/Windsor Locks and the Housatonic River Valley (and farther west the Hudson River at the point of navigation, i.e. Albany) was developed during the earliest colonial period.  At first, this was nothing more than a foot path, alternately following the ridgelines or the rivers as best suited the avoidance of either swamps or impassable rock ledges.

However, in 1760, the first formal survey of the road was presented to the General Assembly in Connecticut; by 1762 a track was cleared.  The first name of the road was ‘The Great Road through the Green Woods’, as the northwestern part of Connecticut, New Hartford included was still heavily wooded.  Other names quickly sprang up: the Great North Road, the Albany Road, the Hartford Road, the New Hartford Road, the Norfolk Road, (the use of a town for the road name was very local, it often indicated a town commonly visited, for example in Salisbury and Canaan one finds references to the ‘old New Hartford Road’ probably due to the traffic between that area and New Hartford in the iron industry).  The name ‘Albany Road’ appears in Hartford, the other end of the route.  Then came the Greenwoods Turnpike and its competitor the Farmington River Turnpike.  These roads were in use by 1800 and represented the next era in roads.  The alternate routes over difficult areas, which had caused the old road to resemble a braided river rather than a canal, were no longer used.  The biggest switch was running the road through Winsted to Norfolk, as opposed to up over Wallens Hill and through Colebrook.  At this time, those sections of the Great North Road lost their title; they became the ‘Old North Road’, the ‘Old New Hartford Road’ no longer ‘Great’.  In New Hartford, several sections were no longer seen as part of the main route (though they remained in use): Burgoyne Heights, Johnny Cake Lane, and a now completely abandoned track on the northeast side of the Farmington. The latter had been the northern extension of the Farmington River Turnpike between New Hartford and Barkhamsted, but it lost out to the Greenwoods Turnpike.  A story of competition that goes beyond this short post.  Eventually, the Greenwoods Turnpike would become Route 44.

In the modern world, we have gas stations for our convenience.  In the age of the horse and buggy, gas stations were not needed; however, water was.  Public drinking troughs, often with decorative fountains, were commonplace in all towns and cities.  In some historic districts these still exist, and the range of decoration is truly amazing.

However, in most places, the trough was purely utilitarian.  They were placed either in convenient town centers and supplied with water from the public water system, or in more remote areas where a horse might need to pause (as it might be at the top of a hill) and where a spring could provide water.  Obviously, river and stream crossings also supplied water.  These were generally wooden and it is likely that none of these, once ubiquitous, roadside icons still survive.  Though, the springs that served them can sometimes still be found.  There is one on River Road in Barkhamsted, between Pleasant Valley and Riverton, for example.

In the center of New Hartford there were several troughs.  At the intersection of Bridge, Church, and Route 44 a large riveted barrel served as the trough.  This was a very utilitarian one; but it served well.  It later was used at Asa and Irving Burdick’s dairy farm on Town Hill as a trough for the dairy cattle.  Legend has it that this barrel also served as the local drunk tank, in the old meaning of the phrase.

A more ornate water fountain was found at the Community House, now the Post Office lot.  Modeled on European, multi-level fountains this was on private property, but nonetheless served the public.  When drinking troughs were no longer used, this fountain found its way to a private home in New Hartford, where it remains to this day.

New Hartford lies on the route from Hartford to Albany, the Old North Road, also known as the Farmington River Turnpike or the Albany Turnpike. This road gradually developed from a path to a road to a turnpike during the early 1700’s. From New Hartford it continued on up the Farmington to Pleasant Valley and Riverton in Barkhamsted. This early link between the two towns is slightly obscured today; because stretch of road between the North Village of New Hartford and Pleasant Valley in Barkhamsted has long been abandoned. This is because the Greenwoods Turnpike, now Route 44, was built on the other side of the Farmington River in the late 1700’s and was a slightly better route.
As the area was colonized, the side roads developed. A more direct road to Barkhamsted’s nominal center from New Hartford’s North Village took off along the route of Holcomb Hill Road, branching off of the turnpike at the ford for the North Village. The Holcomb hill road was laid out in 1756, with New Hartford voting to clear the road if: “they can do it with pooting the Town of New Hartford to but little caust.”
Barkhamsted’s second road was established in the 1760’s. This road branched off from Town Hill along Burgoyne Heights, it followed this low plateau above the swamp and river valley, across Rust Hill. It dropped down to Fancher Road on Route 44 and then headed up Wallen’s Hill on what is now Old North Road past the Sterling Engineering buildings. This road was an alternate to the section of the Farmington River Turnpike that ran through Pleasant Valley and Riverton. While never a competitor for freight traffic, it was an important alternate during the Revolutionary War and it was along it that portions of Burgoyne’s Army marched as prisoners following their defeat at Saratoga in 1777. It had the advantage of being a more direct route between Town Hill, then New Hartford’s center, West Hill, and western Barkhamsted than going down into the North Village. There were also no major fords or bridges between Town Hill and Pleasant Valley, with only one minor river crossing at Fancher road.
The third New Hartford-Barkhamsted road was the short connection between the Farmington River Turnpike up to the North and South Hollows, which lay in the east branch of the river. This road, now under the reservoirs, connected Granby to the Albany Turnpike as well.