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Portsmouth Road

December 15, 1657, it is recorded that the selectmen chose "Will: Fuller & John Casse . . . . To lay out the hyway towards Strabry bank to the extent of our bounds as conveniently as may bee w^eh they have dun according to their discresion." January 31, 1711, there is the return of a committee "to lay out the road towards Portsmouth as far as the town extends," four rods wide, as the road previously went; which is probably simply a widening of the original road to "Strabry bank."

Landing Road

The vote for laying out the road from the Academy green to the Landing is in these words, under date January 1, 1661: "Hen: Roby, Tho: Marston & Tho: Ward are appointed to vew the Highway from the meeting house to the Landing plase which lyeth through William Fuller's land by his house and barne and to bound itt outt two rod wid att the narrowest, according to their disscretion."

A road had been opened here nearly or quite twenty years earlier, but its width had been considerably diminished by encroachments made during that time. Again, in 1825, the same road was run out, "two rods wide."

January 10, 1661: At a meeting of a committee appointed, to determine and record convenient highways, and to award damages, it was ordered that where any private way had been, or should be, laid out through any person's land, whether meadow or marsh, the sweepage and feedage of every such way should belong to the owner of the land over which the way passed, and should not be claimed by any other person -- such ways, in this respect, differing from town and country ways, the sweepage and feedage of which, the committee judged to be common.

In the record of the doings of the committee at this meeting, the Mooring-Turn, so called, in Hampton river, is mentioned as the place "where the boats do usually ride at anchor." It was their opinion, that those who had occasion to moor their boats there, had also a right to use a foot-path leading to it over a tract of salt marsh, formerly owned by Thomas Marston, but at that time by John Cass; and as no compensation had ever been made to either of these men, for damages, it was thought to be no more than justice, to offer to Cass a certain tract of land, in full satisfaction for this use of a portion of his marsh, and he accepted it as such.

Kingston Road

At a town meeting October 12, 1663, a committee was chosen to search out the most convenient way to Kingston, then a remote part of the town, and to have a road laid out accordingly. The "whole towne" was to turn out to build this road "to the Towneship by the Greatt Pond." Back to previous section -- Forward to next section -- Return to Table of Contents