DIVIDING THE LAND. 1 55 



for US the contour of our properties, and directed the 

 public highways for perpetual travel. It is interesting to 

 note, however, that the two cross highways least in use, 

 Sohier Street and Pond Street, are the. ones that Fisher 

 laid out ; while Beechwood Street and North Main Street 

 had to be laid out through private lands. Even South 

 Main Street, which might easily have been laid out nearly 

 straight, as it now is, Fisher provided for along a very 

 uneven contour. 



He apparently did not realize that the highway leading 

 from town to town would have an ever-increasing need to 

 be straight. However, he left enough land for his crooked 

 highway fully to reimburse whatever damages private 

 owners might claim when the road was properly laid out 

 fifteen years later (May, 1685). 



And not only for this correction on South Main Street 

 was land enough reserved, but everywhere in the town 

 where changes had to be made there was land enough 

 reserved by Fisher's plan between the marshes and the 

 upland to make good every damage, as well as to furnish 

 our present Town Common, and to grant as a bonus to 

 individuals who might deserve it for their services. 



Changes in the shape of the lots of Fisher's plan have 

 been made, quite as sweeping as in the highways. 



Very few owners can be found to-day whose land has its 

 original bounds ; but many pieces of old walls running 

 through the woods show the lines bounding the original 

 lots. It is plain that the lots which were only twenty-five 

 feet wide and a mile long were good for nothing but to be 

 sold to the land adjoining, and, furthermore, these mile- 



Joshua Fisher died less than two years from this time, and his inventory " 1672 

 20th day, si.xth month " includes the following crude surveyors" implements used 

 in the division of our land : — 



" Measuring Instruments, Table, Trussell, Index & sights. Loadstone and 

 Great Chains £2,. 



" One small chain and other small things belonging to that work 4s. 6d. 



" Total value about ^16." 



