Note 3 — Buttrick’s Voyages, Travels, and Discoveries 1812–1819

For a description of Albany written a few years later, see Evans’s Tour, post.

Buttrick followed the Genesee Road, the well-established route to Lake Erie. In 1794 the legislature had appropriated money for the construction of a road six rods wide from old Fort Schuyler (Utica) to the Genesee River at Canawagus (Avon, twenty-seven miles south of Lake Ontario), passing the outlets of Cayuga, Seneca, and Canandaigua lakes. Being but little better than an Indian path in 1797, lotteries were authorized for its improvement. In 1799 a stage began to run over the road, and the following year it was made into a turnpike. A highway was opened the same year from the Genesee River to Buffalo, thus completing the connection between Albany and Lake Erie.—Ed.