The earliest evidence that a road existed between the Village of Norwich and the hamlet of South New Berlin is the 1855 map. Prior to that there was none. At least that is what the 1829 and 1839 maps by David H. Burr indicate. These maps are all that we have for that era. They were published by the Surveyor General and republished by Stone and Clark in Ithaca.
These maps do show a road between Woods Corners and South New Berlin. Woods Corners is the intersection of what are today County Road 32 (East River Road) and State Route 320 (Kings Settlement Road). The road to South New Berlin continued straight east where Route 320 makes a sharp turn northeast on the eastern side of Thompson Creek.
In one of the photos, Sally Chirlin is standing on Route 320 pointing to where the road used to go. At that time the precursor to Route 320 was on the western side of Thompson Creek, as was described in my article of February 9, 2004.
Old roads tend to get abandoned in sections, so the missing segments can be interpolated from the pieces that remain. The old road between the Village of New Berlin and the hamlet of North Norwich can be traced this way. So too for the Old Chenango Road between the Village of Bainbridge and the hamlet of Chenango Forks. However, the Woods Corners - South New Berlin road has remained elusive, because no readily recognizable segments persist.
Research was at a standstill, until Scott and Christina Utter invited us Bullthistle Hikers to walk along an old road on their land. There they are in the other photo pointing to their road. I jumped at this opportunity because I wondered if their road could be a piece of the Woods Corners - South New Berlin road. The Utter’s road runs between State Route 23, near the town border, and Sheff Road. It is a mile long and intersects Sheff a mile north of Route 23. This short road appears on maps from 1855, 1863, 1875, 1902, 1910, and 1941. The surnames appearing on the maps are Anderson, Graves, Guile, Hoadley, and Lyons. Some old foundations remain.
Scott heard that his road was once a stagecoach road and showed me a building that is purported locally to have been a regular stage stop. However, I could not find any documentation to support it. Before automobiles, stage runs were common, but chose profitable routes. Anyone with such information is encouraged to share it with us.
I suspect that the 1839 road went through the southern part of the Aurora Hills development, crossed Cooley Lake Road and County Road 31, and met Route 23 where the Utter’s farm is now. The Utter’s road was probably not part of the Woods Corners - South New Berlin Road. It was probably just a residential road. It could also have been part of a route to Chenango Lake or to the Village of New Berlin.
Sheff Road is interesting in its own right because it had several side roads branching off. It also had a somewhat parallel road east of it connecting Route 23 to an abandoned road connecting with Humphrey Road. All of these abandoned roads indicate that this area was once a busy place.
I end here with a plea. We need more old maps, especially old road maps. No one wants to drive around with obsolete maps so old road maps are usually discarded when new ones become available. Thus, the shortage. Anyone who finds some while cleaning out the garage or house is encouraged to give them to me. The names of our roads seem to always be changing and we have no records of when. A single road could have had a half-dozen names. Historians can never have too many maps.