My article in the Heritage Quest Magazine #109, “Locating Colonial Wagon Roads on a Modern Map,” describes the first wagon roads in America. A sidebar to the article describes the first known written account by someone traveling the Boston Post Road, a journal kept by an intrepid woman who made the trip on horseback:
In October 1704, Sarah (or Margaret) Kemble Knight set off on what would be a five month journey, by herself, from her home in Boston to New York and back again. Madam Knight, as she was called, was an unusually independent woman for her time. During her husband’s lifetime she supported herself and her family by running a shop, teaching handwriting to children, copying legal documents, and taking in boarders. After his death she continued to do very well for herself, buying and selling land and keeping an inn. Madam Knight lived from 1666-1727. Her famous journal, Private Journal of a Journey from Boston to New York in the Year 1704, was published and made public in 1825. It is a source of information on colonial customs and conditions, especially of inns. In later life she herself maintained an inn near New London, Connecticut.
In the journal she kept of her trip, Knight described what it was like to travel on horseback, accompanied by a mail carrier and other travelers. Her journal is specific to the stretch of the Post Road from Kingston, Rhode Island, to New London, Connecticut. Her frank humor and often unfavorable descriptions of people she met, anxiety about river crossings, displeasure with the rough inns she stayed in, and habit of turning experience into poetry were all expressed in her journal.
The Boston Post Road was the earliest road in colonial America. Originally it was developed from an Indian trail. In colonial days it was the main land route between New York and Boston. In 1673, England’s King Charles II made it North America’s first official post road or mail route. President George Washington’s 1789 inaugural tour used this route through New England. Today the route has survived as the Bowery in Manhattan, Boston Road in the Bronx, and U.S. Highway 1 in New England. The stretch of U.S. Highway 1 from Westchester County, New York to Providence, Rhode Island still retains its original name for much of the distance, either as “Boston Post Road” or just “Post Road.”
Extracts from Madam Knight’s journal can be found on the History Matters website.