At the end of the American Revolution, spurred on by the euphoria of victory, Americans began a great movement westward, hacking their way through dense forests or struggling along Indian trails. New York State, having no means to meet the overwhelming need for new thoroughfares, turned to private companies to build and maintain roads, called turnpikes.
West through the Catskills tells the story of the people and the forces that created and traveled on one of these roads, the Susquehanna Turnpike (called the Catskill Turnpike by some). On this first of the great roads west, speculators, tavernkeepers, farmers, immigrants, teamsters, drovers, and vigilant tollgate keepers, as well as turkeys and livestock, mingled in the nineteenth century world of the expanding New York Frontier.
The Susquehanna Turnpike flourished briefly, then declined slowly, having fulfilled its role as an early pathway to the West.
