New York State Route 443 - History

History

Route 443 roughly follows an 18th century trail of the Mohawk Indians from the Hudson River to Schoharie Valley. It was probably a few years before 1787 when Stephen Van Rensselaer III had it upgraded and straightened slightly to make it accessible by wagons. Before that the settlers in the Beaver Dam as the Town of Berne is now known, had to go by way of the wagon road from Altamont, through what is now Knox, to the Schoharie Valley.

In the mid-1920s, the entirety of modern NY 443 was designated as part of NY 43, a highway extending from NY 9 (now NY 7) in the hamlet of Central Bridge north of Schoharie to Albany. The 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York brought about a pair of changes in NY 43's alignment. On its western end, it was truncated to a junction with the newly-created NY 30 just north of Schoharie. To the east, NY 43 was extended east through Albany and across the Hudson River to the Massachusetts state line. NY 43 was truncated on its western end in the early 1970s to Rensselaer, a city bordering Albany on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Its former routing from Schoharie to Madison Avenue in Albany was redesignated as NY 443. Many of the reference markers along NY 443 still bear the number "43".