(HOST) As snow recedes in the woods, and hiking season approaches, commentator Edith Hunter is reminded of a piece of legislation passed last year on Ancient Roads. And while she says that none of our roads quite fit the dictionary definition of “ancient” as “belonging to times long past…from the historical period beginning with Egypt, down to the fall of the Roman Empire…” she still thinks that Act 178 is a good idea.
(HUNTER) Weathersfield received its first charter from Benning Wentworth in 1761 and its second from New York State in 1772. By 1763, our first roads had been laid out.
Some of those roads follow the same routes as our roads today, while others are no longer used and appear only on early maps, if at all. When a town formally discontinues a road the process is referred to by the rather unlovely term “thrown up.”
Act 178 was passed because of a problem realtors, as well as home owners and developers were running into all over the state. Lawsuits were coming before the courts because landowners were discovering that long unused roads passed through their property. Very wisely, the Legislature decided to do something about it.
The Act establishes a new class of “unidentified corridors” – old roads that do not appear on Vermont Transportation maps. Towns have until July 1, 2015 to research these unidentified corridors and either reclassify them, or have them officially thrown up. Land owners will be compensated as needed.
In Weathersfield, thanks to citizen interest in maintaining many of these old roads as hiking trails, our selectboard acted promptly. A committee on Ancient Roads was formed. All old maps were collected including the 1855 Doton Map, the 1869 Beers Map, and the 1883 Child’s Business Gazetteer Map. In addition, in Weathersfield, there is a very rough 1800 Map, called “Thoroughfares and Meeting House Roads” drawn by Ernest Butterfield.
The committee, working with the selectboard, has drawn up a list of 14 possible ancient roads to consider. Individual members of the committee will take on specific roads to research using the maps, old deeds, and early selectboard and road commissioners’ records. The goal is to establish whether or not the roads were ever thrown up, and then how to reclassify them.
An interesting related issue is the status of the eighty-five-mile historic Crown Point Road. Although it was never accepted as a town road, in Weathersfield the selectboard would like to establish a “Greenway” fifty-foot easement, where possible, along the nine miles of the historic road that pass through Weathersfield.
There are going to be a lot of new amateur historians at work in Vermont if other towns are as diligent about taking prompt action as the citizens of Weathersfield.
Writer and historian Edith Hunter lives in Weathersfield Center.