The Five Mile House, its location, and William McKown's lease
map of
      former location of Five Mile TavernMap made in 1939 by William Efner, showing the former location of the Five Mile House,
then said to be located under the green of the 18th hole on the golf course of the Albany Country Club. This tavern was leased by the City of Albany to William McKown from 1787 to 1808. The symbol just to the right of the tavern is probably meant to represent the well sited in that position. No firmly identified pictures# of the old Five Mile House are known to exist, but it is possible that an 1889 photo of an old farmhouse used for a few years by the newly formed Country Club as its first clubhouse is of the Five Mile Tavern.
This map and other documents by W.B. Efner and W.D. Mohr used as sources for this page are in the WD Mohr archive at the Albany Pine Bush Preserve [organized and contributed by Steve Rider].

This tavern was the second hostelry going west along the "Kings Highway", the original road between Albany and Schenectady, and the main road until the Schenectady Turnpike opened in the early 19th century. The tavern got its name from the location about 5 miles along the road from the Hudson waterfront at Albany. The place was known as "The Kuyl", an old Dutch word meaning* "den", or "pit", but it is not known why this was applied. The earliest  record of the tavern is from 1767, when "John Ritchies at the Knil" is the label for a building here on A map of the Manor of Renselaerwyck by J. Bleeker, surveyor. In 1778, another map (Erskine-DeWitt map From Albany to Schoharie) shows the building with the label "Michael Hornbeek".  In April 1786, minutes of the City of Albany Common Council indicate that William McKown is making repairs to it and permits him to put up a barn, and to offset the repair expenses against his rent; in 1787 there is a formal lease of the property, including 43 acres, to William McKown for 21 years until 1808. The City of Albany's Journal of Receipts in the NYS Library show that William McKown faithfully paid his annual rent (£25 up to 1801, $62.50 after that) up to the end of his lease of the Five Mile House, making the last payment on July 4th 1807. It is probable that McKown subleased it when his new Hotel and tavern on the Great Western Turnpike became busy after the completion of this part of the Turnpike in about 1800. A map of 1805 in the Albany Institute of History and Art marks the Five Mile House as "Daniel Woodworth's T.", who was a brother-in-law, and McKown continued paying the rent to the City of Albany. While William McKown established himself running the Five Mile Tavern in the 1780's, his older brother James was also in the same trade, building a similar inn on the road to Kinderhook, about 5 miles east of the Hudson River next to the East Greenbush town line.
W.D. Mohr wrote that he had seen a map in the office of the Albany City Engineer, showing the Five Mile House annotated with the name "Lewis" and "Lease expires May 1, 1819"; this must have been a copy of the 1817 Van Alen map of the Great Lots, which shows this inscription; that is the last known trace of this building in the old City records.

Three mid-19th century maps show house locations in the area, the earliest being the 1851 Sidney map, which shows the house William Knowles later sold to the Club, located west of the east branch of the Krum (Crum) Kill, belonging to W Cooper. The map shows another house north of this one, also labelled with the name of W Cooper, which might be the house the Club used as the first clubhouse. The location shown is approximately where the Five Mile House ought to be placed.
The 1854 Gould map only shows the southern of these two houses, labelled belonging to W Cooper. The Beers 1866 map of the western part of Albany does not show the Krum Kill stream, and does not show the house later owned by Knowles, which we know was present. It does show two houses on the Kings Highway, one labelled Knause, at the location of the Five Mile Tavern, and the other J Archy, at the same place as the house labelled Heenan on the 1851 map. See this web page for maps showing the relative positions of these marked houses in the context of the Country club property and golf course, and the positions of the Five Mile House and the King's Highway on the Van Alen map.

McKownville on Sidney map
      1851

Part of the 1851 Sidney Map of the vicinity of Albany and Troy, showing the area of McKownville and surroundings.
The house that William Knowles sold to the Country Club in 1894 is shown on this map, in the right place on the west side of the Krumkill stream east branch, labelled with the name W Cooper (William Cooper). Another house to the north, also labelled W Cooper, is near the location of the old Five Mile Tavern.















The first USGS topographic map of this area, published in 1893, perhaps shows a house present approximately at the site of the Five Mile Tavern, but does not show anything at the nearby site of William Knowles farm and house, purchased by the Club in 1894-5, nor any house at the location farther west of the LaGrange farmhouse, both of which certainly existed at the time of the map survey (1891).
There is a newspaper report of 11 November 1914 suggesting that the Five Mile Tavern (called King's Tavern in the article) still stood but in a poor state of repair; then a one-sentence report in a McKownville news paragraph published in the Altamont Enterprise of 26 March 1915 states that the old Country Club clubhouse burned down. If this was the Five Mile House, as claimed in the 1914 report, that was the end of it, and it had certainly been gone at least for decades by 1940, the date on William Efner's research notes.
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# Fred Abele, in the Altamont Enterprise, 13 March 1981, p.3 stated: "A painting is the only known illustration of what is reputed to be the tavern building which was demolished shortly before 1900". The painting referenced has not been traced, and the date of demolition is debatable (see above).
*In the same article, Abele says the location was at "the Kyl", and that it referred to the east branch of the Krum Kill stream, which rises near the tavern site. This might be plausible, as this is the only place along the King's Highway where such a stream is close by. However, the word used in most of the 18thC documents for this place (except for the "Knil" on the Bleeker map) is specifically "the Kuyl". Geoff Williams, the University at Albany archivist, indicates this is an old Dutch word for a pit, which describes quite well the steep-sided head of the channel of the stream that existed here before the University construction. Another source translates it as meaning "a den", but why this would have been attached to this place is unknown; perhaps wolves once lived here too?

[this page revised significantly 10/2024]
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