Proclaimed by royal decree almost three centuries ago, this onetime Indian trail wound northward through Long Clove to the Hudson River below. Its original purpose was military, as the English Crown feared invasion by the French and Indians. During the Revolutionary War, when the British fleet often controlled the Hudson, this pass through the South Mountain or Verdrietege Hook enabled the American military to transport troops and supplies to the strategic forts at Stony Point and West Point and Forts Clinton and Montgomery. General Washington frequently traveled this way when visiting the forts or crossing the Hudson at the Stony Point Kings Ferry to communicate with the New England colonies. By the 19th century, wagons heavily loaded with farm produce, wood, sandstone, and granite passed through the clove to the docks at Snedekers Landing, later Waldberg Landing, and Haverstraw, where ships carried the cargo to New York markets. In the 1800s, the fledgling Jersey City and Albany Railroad Company, later the N. Y. Central and West Shore R. R., extended tracks from Congers to Haverstraw and northward, and before tunneling under the mountain, a temporary rail line ran through the pass, descending more than 100 feet to the riverfront by three switchbacks, each almost a mile long.