In Colonial America, the most heavily traveled road passed through here, linking areas from the Great Lakes to Augusta, Georgia. It was laid on ancient animal and Native American trading and warrior paths. Indian treaties among the governors of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia and the nineteen chiefs of the Iroquois League of Five Nations in 1685 and 1722 opened the colonial backcountry for peaceful settlement and colonization. In New York, the path linked the Iroquois around the Great Lakes to the major eastern trails and tribes for trade, hunting, and war.