Stephen Jenkins has chosen for the subject of this volume the oldest and most northerly of the post roads

that over which the first postrider went; which echoed to the war-whoop of the savage, saw the passage of soldiers during the French Wars; beheld the flocking of the minutemen upon the Lexington Alarm, later became the pathway of countless thousands of emigrants on their way to the rich valleys of the Mohawk and the Genesee, or to the fertile prairies of the Middle West. By this route, via New Haven, Hartford, Springfield, and Worcester, a monthly mail was established in 1673, "the first mail upon the continent of America," as the author declares. He traces these pioneer settlements to their present positions as manufacturing towns and cities.