Outside the village limits, the route becomes Mainville Road and runs mostly parallel to Phillips Creek, following it northeast and eastward through a lightly populated valley.

The highway meets the southern terminus of CR 2B (Baker Valley Road) on its way into the town of Ward, where NY 244 loses the Mainville Road name and the creek ends in the hamlet of Phillips Creek.

[3] East of Phillips Creek, NY 244 proceeds across hilly, rural terrain to the town of Alfred, where the highway crosses CR 10 (Vandermark Road) and CR 11 (McHenry Valley Road) at a junction just east of the town line.

The intersection is just over 3 miles (4.8 km) south of the village of Almond, where NY 21 connects to the Southern Tier Expressway.

[9] In 1964, the New York State Department of Public Works proposed trading over 80 miles (130 km) of roads that were not managing 1,000 or more cars daily for the construction of 30 miles (48 km) of the Southern Tier Expressway (NY 17).