Heading south on the dirt roadbed of Old Mine Road, just north of Van Campen Inn NJ
Travelers of the 21st century from Kingston, NY, to Pahaquarry, NJ, will pass markers reading “Old Mine Road was built about 1650.” Its history was recounted to a surveyor in 1730 by area settlers. Writers who popularized the road, particularly Amelia S. Decker in 1942, acknowledge its origins as a Native American trail. Old Mine Road traverses the Minisink, the crossroads of a number of native Lenape trails and waterways which explorers and traders traversed through the late 1600s.
Old Mine Road linked early Dutch settlements in Esopus, NY, to the Delaware River. With its southern terminus at Pahaquarry, many thought Old Mine Road was tied to copper mines worked there. However, successive attempts at those mines proved unprofitable, and today most dismiss any possibility of that as the reason for the road’s construction. Whether romanticized history or fact, stories of the origin of the road still stir dispute.
Old Mine Road’s use continued through the British takeover of New Netherlands in 1664. Routes were not given consistent names in this period, and Old Mine Road was also called the Trade Path, the Road to Esopus, Kings Road, and Queen’s Highway. Not unlike modern roads, it became a primary route used by explorers and traders, and evolved into a wagon route and then a finished road.
