KNOX — The town of Knox and the Knox Historical Society will dedicate the new Plank Road Toll Gate 3 historic marker on Sunday, Aug. 9.  The event will begin at 2 p.m. in the Knox Town Hall on Route 156 with a brief review of all 14 historic markers in the town, and related historic documentation.

Weather permitting, we will then carpool to Route 146 east of Witter Road for the unveiling of the new Toll Gate 3 historic marker.

An article in the Aug. 12, 1932 Altamont Enterprise describes Miss Mary D. Gregg’s Altamont High School graduation essay, “The Old Schoharie and Albany Plank Road.”  Her essay deals in detail with the story of the Albany-Schoharie Plank Road from its incorporation in 1849 by the Plank Road Association to its abandonment in 1866.

Toll Gate 3 was at “the eastern end of the settlement of East Township.”  The article even has a picture of Foster Williamson, a tollgate keeper of Gate 3.

According to Miss Gregg, the structure of a plank road was not complex.  As a base, six parallel stringers, 3- by 4-inch timbers, usually of hemlock or birch, were laid in the ground end to end.  Then 9- or 10-foot long planks were laid crosswise as close as possible, but never nailed.

As a result, she wrote, “All day long, a rumble as of distant thunder resounded across the countryside, as the wagons, coaches, and herds of stock traveled up and down.”

Editor’s note: Daniel A. Driscoll is a member of the Knox Historical Society.