Kennebunk Road

United States Migration  Trails and Roads  Massachusetts  New Hampshire  Maine  Kennebunk Road

Did an ancestor travel the Kennebunk Road? Learn about this settler migration route, its transportation history, and find related genealogy sources.

New Englanders inherited a vast network of Indian Trails. Two of the most well known are the Mohawk Trail and the Kennebunk Trail, later known as the Kennebunk Road. The Kennebunk Road was a coastal route that connected Augusta, Maine with Massachusetts, and was an important route from Portsmouth, New Hampshire to Boston, Massachusetts. It was also used from 1630-1761 as a migration route for settlers from Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine.

Connecting Routes Over time the Kennebunk Road connected with half a dozen new migration routes out of its Boston end:


 * Bay Road connects Boston (Massachusetts Bay) to New Bedford (Buzzards Bay).
 * Coast Path follows an ancient Indian path near the shoreline from Boston to Plymouth.
 * King's Highway also known as the Boston Post Road goes from Boston, Massachusetts to New York City, and south to Charleston, South Carolina with extensions on each end. In Massachusetts and Connecticut there were at least three competing routes for the Boston Post Road. Parts were laid out 1650 to 1735; its length remained in heavy use through 1783, and some parts are used to this day.
 * Mohawk or Iroquois Trail This trail was established in 1722 from Albany to Utica to Rome to Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario. The Boston to Albany side of that route probably preceded the Albany to Oswego route by many years.
 * Old Connecticut Path a pre-historic Indian path from Boston, Massachusetts to the Connecticut River Valley at Springfield, Massachusetts and south to Hartford, Connecticut.
 * Old Roebuck Road goes from Boston to Providence, Rhode Island (Narragansett Bay).