Reference markers indicate its terminus in Fort Plain to be its western, although the route heads nearly due southward until Sprout Brook.

The route was assigned as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York and originally continued north to the village of Canajoharie via NY 10.

The route heads southwest along Main Street through Fort Plain, overlapping with NY 80 as it passes multiple commercial businesses near the village center.

[3] Through Minden, NY 163 winds southwest as a two-lane rural roadway, crossing a junction with Fisk Hill Road (unsigned CR 64).

The two-lane rural roadway remains the same for a couple miles, crossing into the hamlet of Hessville and a junction with Indian Trail Road (CR 77).

The section between Sprout Brook and Main Street in Fort Plain was rebuilt under a project contracted out on July 15, 1915, and accepted into the state highway system on November 15, 1918, as SH 410.