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Maps Don't Show Vermont's Sleeping Roads

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(page 2 of 3)

They scanned everything into computers, transcribed the handwritten descriptions, and translated old survey measurements from "rods" and "chains" into GIS displays. Then they compared their findings with current maps. By midsummer of 2008, they'd worked their way to 1899 and had identified 138 roads. Most were still in use. About 20 had been discontinued, and another dozen were sleeping: abandoned, but locatable through survey measurements, historical maps, old deed books and plats, and field work.

"And then there are 10 roads we have no idea where they are," says George Mincar, the committee's chairperson. "We have only a shape for them," plotted by GIS. "The original owners were well documented in 1850s and 1860s, but then the land might have been subdivided and sold, so we have to backtrack. If we can identify a starting point or an end point, we might be able to pin down those roads." That was the task on a July evening last year in Huntington's small town office, where committee members were working on the puzzler they called "Unknown Road #62."

In addition to researching roads, the committee sent a questionnaire to every Huntington household and landowner. It asked what people wanted to do, if anything, about the town's ancient roads. Last November, the committee presented all its findings to the select board, which ultimately will decide which roads to return to the map.

The group knows that their work could lead to hard feelings among their neighbors, which pains them. "We have several landowners who feel strongly about private property rights," says committee member Lucinda Hill.

Bart Howe, another member, chuckles. "And we have others," he says, "who, when they hear they might have a road through their land, will become strong about property rights."

Howe and another committee member turned out to have sleeping roads on their own properties. "Personally, I'd prefer it not be classified an ancient road," he says. "But as a member of the committee, I'm neutral."

"It's an interesting tension," says Worthley. "I've changed my opinion half a dozen times. For me, it keeps coming down to the fact that when the roads are gone this time, they're gone forever, so this is a way to hold the option." For instance, the committee discovered an ancient road that leads to the town forest, now surrounded by private property with no public access. The current landowner lets the town in, but claiming the old road would provide a clear benefit to the town.

On the other hand, one farmer in Huntington was shocked to learn of a sleeping road on her property. If the town claims it, she could have snowmobiles or off-road vehicles roaring through a livestock pasture and past her back door. The town can specify that an ancient right-of-way remain open only for hikers. "But once it's on a map," notes Mincar, "people might use it anyway, and you'd also have enforcement issues."

That's what worries Alan Brace, a Huntington resident. "I see it as a Pandora's box," he says. Brace grows hay on the 117-acre farm where he was raised. He posts his land for hunting but allows snowmobiling and cross-country skiing, since they don't affect his crop and he likes to be neighborly. But the committee found a sleeping road on his land, and the possibility of a permanent right-of-way through his fields alarms him. Off-road vehicles aside, even small things left in his hayfield can be damaging. A tossed stick can clog his baler. "And people leave behind wrappers, cans, bottles," he says. "Does any horse person want glass or wire or aluminum in their hay bale? The majority of people are great, but 10 percent aren't, and if you give them a benefit, they turn it into a right."