The Genesee Road was incorporated by the following act, April 1, 1800:
“An act to establish a turnpike road company for improving the State road from the house of John House in the village of Utica, in the county of Oneida, to the village of Cayuga in the county of Cayuga, and from thence to Canadarque in the county of Ontario.
“Be it enacted by the People of the State of New York represented in Senate and Assembly That Benjamin Walker, Charles Williamson, Jedediah Sanger and Israel Chapin and all such persons as shall associate for the purpose of making a good and sufficient road in the form and manner herein after described from the house of John House ... observing as nearly the line of the present State [Genesee] road as the nature of the ground will allow, shall be and are hereby made a corporation and body politic in fact and in name, by the name of ‘The President and Directors of the Seneca Road Company’....”[39]
The road was to be under the management of nine directors and the capital stock was to be two thousand two hundred shares worth fifty dollars each. The directors were empowered to enter upon any lands necessary in building the road, specifications being made for appraisal of damages. The road was to “be six rods in width ... cleared of all timber excepting trees of ornament, and to be improved in the manner following, to wit, in the middle of the said road there shall be formed a space not less than twenty four feet in breadth, the center of which shall be raised fifteen inches above the sides, rising towards the middle by gradual arch, twenty feet of which shall be covered with gravel or broken stone fifteen inches deep in the center and nine inches deep on the sides so as to form a firm and even surface.”
Tollgates were to be established when the road was in proper condition every ten miles; the rates of toll designated in this law will be of interest for comparative purposes:
Tolls in 1800 on Seneca Turnpike, New York
| Wagon, and two horses | .12½ |
| Each horse additional | .03 |
| Cart, one horse | .06 |
| Coach, or four wheeled carriage, two horses | .25 |
| Each horse additional | .03 |
| Carriage, one horse | .12½ |
| Each horse additional | .06 |
| Cart, two oxen | .08 |
| Each yoke additional | .03 |
| Saddle or led horse | .04 |
| Sled, between December 15 and March 15 | .12½ |
| Score of cattle | .06 |
| Score of sheep or hogs | .03 |
The old Genesee Road passed through as romantic and beautiful a land as heart could wish to see or know; but the road itself was a creation of comparatively modern days, in which Seneca and Mohawk were eliminated factors in the problem. Here, near this road, a great experiment was made a few years after its building, when a canal was proposed and dug, amid fears and doubts on the part of many, from Albany to Buffalo. One of the first persons to advocate a water highway which would eclipse the land route, sent a number of articles on the subject to a local paper, whose editor was compelled to refuse to print more of them, because of the ridicule to which they exposed the paper! Poor as the old road was in bad weather, people could not conceive of any better substitute.