Old country roads in VT

[Mohamed Ellozy]

From today's NY Times: Vermont Towns Try to Find Their Roads Less Traveled:

... a 2006 state law that gives Vermont’s cities and towns until early next year to identify all their “ancient roads.” At that point, they can add the elusive roads to official town maps, ensuring that they remain public, or turn them over to owners of adjoining land.

Unlike many other states, where towns automatically forfeit rights to roads that go unused for years, Vermont requires that they remain public until formally discontinued. That has brought fights between towns and landowners whose property abuts or even intersects ancient roads, with the towns eager to preserve public access for outdoor pursuits and the owners seeking clear titles and privacy.

 

[Hillwalker]

VT old roads

This situation of old town roads in Vermont causes not a few headaches for those of us who officially monitor the AT Corridor. Many of the roads cross the corridor, which itself is technically a National Park belonging to the National Park Service and administered by the US Forest Service. The NPS and FS prohibit vehicular traffic within the corridor, but the towns retain the right to allow this traffic on their old roads. Many of these old roads act as legal snowmobile trails in winter.

The problem that monitors face is that of keeping vehicular traffic on the old town highways from just veering of into the corridor at will. Occasionally we will discover piles of trash and old construction material that has been driven up the old road and just dumped in the AT Corridor.

We are always looking for people who love walking in the woods and who can devote a day or three a year to helping keep this National Scenic Trail's corridor intact.

Monitors don't enforce the rules. They simply report problems to the FS and they respond.

Help, become an AT Corridor Monitor.

 

[RoySwkr]

Unlike many other states, where towns automatically forfeit rights to roads that go unused for years, Vermont requires that they remain public until formally discontinued.

NH also requires formal cession, you cannot gain possession of an official road after non-use

 

[--M.]

Thanks for this, Mohamed. The key word to me is "ancient." Like the Sandwich Notch Road, some of these old byways are little archeological/historical finds. Selfishly, I'd like to see them linger for younger generations to discover. Knowing that Henry Knox pulled artillery over a stretch or that Henry David Thoreau picked apples in an orchard that's still there is fascinating to me.

 

[DrewKnight]

I agree, I love the charm of the 'ancient' roads...

I remember reading about the Colonial 'turnpikes' and Post Roads in high school, and all of that was brought home to me in a personal way when my folks bought a house on the Branch Londonderry Turnpike in Bow, NH in the early 80s...

The Branch Londonderry Turnpike ran, I think, from Hooksett NH to Hopkinton Center, where it connected up with (I believe) the Dartmouth Post Road. There are still paved sections of the road today -- really suburban by-ways -- but there are also long stretches of deteriorated two-track that was rapidly going back to forest. I really loved walking or biking along the old stone walls and cellar holes, thinking about what it must have been like for the settlers in the early 19th century, way out on what must have felt like the very edge of civilization, or the gateway to the dark wilderness.

Even now, we take every opportunity we get to drive one of the mountain roads instead of a highway. All summer long, Tripoli Road is a welcome relief from 93 (well, except some weekends, when the "urban spillover" camping scene gets to be a little too much), and it doesn't take much imagination to "see" horse teams hauling a wagon up Livermore Road or over Sandwich Notch.

By the way, I tripped over this on Amazon when I was fact-checking myself on turnpike history... kind of interesting for us historical-road and ghost-town types:

http://books.google.com/books?id=1p...g=bv8OetR3hrJQbtvctUZvZjdNfa4&hl=en#PPA236,M1

 

[Hillwalker]

Ghosts of the past

These old pioneer roads are such wonderful places to wander. Even notice that you can sometimes feel that there must be an old cellar hole just up in the woods, and often there is. The really fun finds are those cellar holes that have wells in them. Often finding the well that belonged to the house is quite a thrill.

One of the really interesting parts of being a Corridor Monitor is that you have survey maps that often show the name of the former owners of the house belonging to the cellar. Along with the dates of property transfers covering a hundred years or so.

Some day I would like to find out why some of the old cellar holes have the chimney base designed for a center chimney house, while others do not. I wonder if it was simply a reason of economics and the cost of construction or an indicator of the wealth of the pioneer. Not that any of them were wealthy in today's terms.

You look around at what must have been pretty hardscrabble farming.

Speaking of "hardscrabble", there is a place named that up in Lyme's backwoods.

Sorry about the rambling, but my muse is here today.

HW

 

[Kevin Rooney]

I was always intrigued by the Bayley-Hazen Military Road which runs from Newberry (just south of Woodsville on the VT side) north to the Canadian (ien) border. It was intended to move American troops against Brits in Montreal during the Revolution. Parts of it are still visible today in "The Kingdom".

 

[Peaks]

I was always intrigued by the Bayley-Hazen Military Road which runs from Newberry (just south of Woodsville on the VT side) north to the Canadian (ien) border. It was intended to move American troops against Brits in Montreal during the Revolution. Parts of it are still visible today in "The Kingdom".

The Catamount Trail follows a section of it, from Craftsbury through Lowell and to the end at Hazen's Notch.

 

[SteveHiker]

I was always intrigued by the Bayley-Hazen Military Road which runs from Newberry (just south of Woodsville on the VT side) north to the Canadian (ien) border. It was intended to move American troops against Brits in Montreal during the Revolution. Parts of it are still visible today in "The Kingdom".

You can still follow parts of the Crown Point Military Road as well. In parts of Cavendish and Weathersfield there are roadside stone markers marking part of the route. Some of it goes off into the woods, while some of it has been incorporated into the town roads. There are some old French-and-Indian War era graves and an encampment site of the road builders as well, if you know where to look. (They're pretty easy to find).

In sixth grade, we took a field trip and walked along a good part of it. Probably didn't appreciate it as much at the time.


The ancient roads are pretty cool, unless you find out your house is in the middle of one. This happened to my uncle after he built his house. There's some old right-of-way that goes thru his bedroom, down the hall and into the kitchen or something along those lines.

 

[Dave Bear]

The really fun finds are those cellar holes that have wells in them. Often finding the well that belonged to the house is quite a thrill.



HW

You want to be real careful finding those wells! A fellow up near my dad's place in Hill found a deep one he couldn't get out of. Happens he was hunting and its wooden cover was concealed with leaves and broke through. His two shots were heard by a neighbor and my dad got him out and pushed it in with a skidder. The poor fellow got lucky and might have had to figure the best way to use his last bullet if not for the neighbor!

 

[Kevin Rooney]

The ancient roads are pretty cool, unless you find out your house is in the middle of one. This happened to my uncle after he built his house. There's some old right-of-way that goes thru his bedroom, down the hall and into the kitchen or something along those lines.

That's interesting, Steve. I know such things happen occasionally, particularly in towns without zoning so nobody in the town clerk's/zoning office actually checks the old records. I doubt whether the town's going to rebuilt the road thru his bedroom, but at least the new law will provide some clarity as to whether his land remains encumbered or not.