216 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Highway Locations. 



The origins of our Massachusetts highways are various. 

 The location of the early colonial roads was largel}' a 

 matter of accident. When the country was settled by 

 white men there were well-defined Indian trails or foot 

 paths which connected the Indian villages. These naturally 

 followed the most eligible routes. In turn, these became 

 the foot paths and horseways of the English settlers. In 

 Hampshire County, which then included the entire western 

 half of this State, there were no carriages in use until well 

 into the eighteenth century, though I believe the use of 

 sleds for travel over the snow and ice in winter had been 

 borrowed from the Dutch by way of Albany. When wheel 

 vehicles began to come into more general use, the necessity 

 for wider and more satisfactory roads immediately arose. 

 Highways began to be worked in a rude way, and answered 

 passably for the passage of wagons and carts. A good 

 nianj^ of the country highwa3'S now existing had their origin 

 thus ; that is, they were evolutions from Indian trails, 

 through bridle paths and lanes for cattle up to wagon roads. 

 As the necessity of the settlers required it, other routes 

 began to be used, connecting the different toAvns. Few of 

 these had any actual laying out at the beginning, but as the 

 population increased many controversies arose over high- 

 ways, especially as to the location of new ones, changes in 

 the old ones, the building of bridges, establishment of fer- 

 ries, and the particular points to which they should l)e 

 directed. 



Next to disputes over the settlement of ministers and the 

 management of church affairs, the New Englander of the 

 seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth centuries found 

 no field so fertile for the cultivation of controversies as that 

 of roads and road building. The celebrated Morton-Dick- 

 inson dispute with the town of Iladlcy over their alleged 

 encroachments upon the highwa}' of the East Precinct, now 

 the town of Amherst, in 1746, lasted fifteen years, and in- 

 volved in its various phas(!s the action of referees, the 

 county court, and finally the General Court itself. 



