Rural Economy in New England 313 



The next step was to lay out ways of communication from town to 

 town.^ It was difficult to secure co-operation between the autono- 

 mous local governments in this matter, the result being that such 

 roads were often neglected.- Hence it became necessary to pass 

 laws providing that new highways from town to town should be 

 laid out, or old ways altered, by a jury appointed by the county 

 court.^ In case the towns to be thus connected lay in different 

 counties, a special act of legislature was necessary, appointing a 

 committee to do the worlc* This method was not only cumber- 

 some and expensive but often unsatisfactory/ In Connecticut, as 

 early as 1750 these methods had to some extent been replaced by 

 immediate action of the legislature in appointing committees to 

 lay out morejlirect routes between towns in distant parts of the state 

 between which there was considerable travel.*^ 



When the routes had been determined by one or another of these 

 methods, a narrow track was cleared of trees and rocks (in newer 

 towns the stumps were often left standing in the road), and the logs 

 were drawn away to furnish material for causeways and bridges.'' 

 Thus the roads were made passable for travelers on horseback and 

 for ox-carts. The methods of repairing were equally simple. A 

 contributor to the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society 

 from Holliston, in Middlesex County, about twenty-five miles from 



' Dwight outlines the steps in the laying out of roads in his Travels, II. 121-122. 



2 See Public Records of Colony of Connecticut. 1684. Vol. III., p. 157. 



^ The original provision for this action is found in the Colonial Records of 

 Connecticut, IV. 314-316, and in Massachusetts Bay, A. and R. 1693-1694. 

 Ch. 6. A later act somewhat simplifying this process is found in the same, 1756- 

 1757, Ch. 18. 



* See Col. Rec. Conn. X. 107. (1752.) 



^ As in the case of the town of Woodbury which was required to keep in re- 

 pair three parallel roads laid out at different times by the Litchfield county court 

 between the towns of Litchfield and Bethlehem. Resolves and Private Laws 

 of Connecticut, 1789-1836. Hartford. 1837. p. 607. 



* As between Hartford and New Haven, New Haven and New London, New 

 Haven and Windham. The most famous of these early "state roads" was that 

 leading from Hartford through Simsbury, New Hartford, Canaan and Norfolk 

 towards Albany, called the Greenwoods Road. In all of these cases there was no 

 appropriation of state money for this purpose, but the towns through which the 

 route lay were ordered to make and repair the road. This, however, they regu- 

 larly failed to do. So in the case of the Greenwoods Road; although laid out in 

 1759 it was not constructed until 1764 and in 1766 was in "great want of amend- 

 ment." Col. Rec. Conn. Vols. XI and XII. 



' Belknap, History of New Hampshire, III. 375-378, describes in detail the 

 clearing of new roads. 



