(Pittsfield Mass.) - Albany - Cherry Valley - Sangerfield - La Fayette - Auburn - Geneva - Canandaigua - Fredonia - Westfield - (Erie, Pa.) US 20. Massachusetts Line to Pennsylvania Line, 387.6 m.
Two, three, and four lane concrete, with stretches of two-lane macadam...
In 150 years trails and woods-roads have been joined to make US 20 a popular route spanning the Empire State but touching only two large cities - Albany and Auburn. From the crest of the Taconics the highway drops into the Hudson Valley; west of Albany it mounts the flank of the Helderbergs, dips into and out of the valley of Schoharie Creek, plunges into the upper valleys of the Susquehanna watershed, rides the serrated northern rim of the Allegheny Plateau, crosses the base of the Finger Lakes, then cuts across the rolling Ontario Plain to Lake Erie, and thence southwest to the Pennsylvania line...
Following the trails made by moccasined feet, the route runs the length of the 'Long House' of the Iroquois Confederacy... The Revolution ended, Sullivan's soldiers went home to New England bearing tales of a fertile land to the west; and with the peace, the westward rush was on...
The migrating New Englanders, besides settling the region with stubborn, sturdy men and women, added their characteristic religious and political vagaries. Memorials of their sects and cults are scattered along the route from the Shakers at New Lebanon to the the Brotherhood of the New Life at Brocton...
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