perambulated lately?
By DAVID BROOKS
Staff Writer
Being a town selectman requires some unexpected skills, but should scrambling over hillsides be one of them?
Karel Crawford doesn’t think so. The former Moultonborough selectman, now a state representative, is proposing to loosen restrictions on one of New Hampshire’s more unusual state laws – one that requires selectmen to walk their entire town boundary every seven years, ensuring that the necessary granite posts and other physical markers are in place, a job known by the archaic term “perambulation.”
“We had to perambulate once while I was there. It was a chore to get someone to walk the lines,” said Crawford. “The town line goes up into the Ossipee Mountains!”
The law titled “perambulation of boundaries” (RSA 51) has been on the books for about as long as New Hampshire has had law books, dating back to colonial practices.
It says “The lines between the towns in this state shall be perambulated, and the marks and bounds renewed, once in every seven years forever, by the selectmen of the towns, or by such persons as they shall in writing appoint for that purpose.”
Crawford’s proposed bill would remove the seven-year requirement, leaving it up to the discretion of the selectmen – which probably means that the practice would end. She says satellite technology has rendered the requirement unnecessary.
“The town administrator contacted me this year and said, with GPS and everything I don’t even know why we need to do this any longer,” she said. “I agree with him.”
The law carries the penalty of a violation, which is the equivalent of a traffic ticket, but even so it’s frequently ignored. On average, 33 of New Hampshire’s 234 cities and towns should be filing an official perambulation report each year, yet only 10 or 15 of them do, said Brian Burford, state records manager for the New Hampshire Division of Archives and Records Management.
There’s a similar law on the books for perambulating the state boundaries, which is followed more in spirit than in letter. In 2010, for example, governors of New Hampshire and Vermont met at a survey marker at the corner of the Norwich/Hanover bridge to ceremoniously mark the border, but they didn’t actually stroll its 150-mile length.
Burford has become New Hampshire’s perambulation expert, partly because of his historical role with the state library – he has written historical pieces about the law that, among other things, notes that some early records encouraged such boundary markers as “a great heap of stones, or a trench six foot long and two foot broad.” He’s also a licensed land surveyor who thinks nothing of scrambling through woods to find ancient granite posts, and is strongly in favor of keeping the practice of municipal boundary walking.
“The purpose of it is to make sure that the physical markers on the ground are on there, to guide us where the town line is. All the GPS in the world won’t do that. It’s nice and helpful, but it doesn’t replace the fact that the bounds are out there,” he said.
The last time a proposal came the Legislature to dilute the perambulation bill, in 2005, Burford testified against it, and the bill was tabled. He says he’ll be happy to testify against this proposal, if it comes to that.
To support his argument, he points to circumstances around the last attempt to dilute the law.
That bill came forward at the behest of selectmen in Milford, who thought that perambulation was unnecessary. But later that same year, a development survey found that nine houses on Summer Street were actually in the next town, because the border wasn’t where everybody through it was. The situation was so unclear that a Telegraph story was datelined “Milford, or maybe Amherst.”
It took an act of the Legislature to move the town border and clear things up.
Burford says that if selectmen in either of those towns had been perambulating borders, the problem would have been spotted years earlier.
“It wasn’t six months later that suddenly this issue smacked them in the face,” he said. “That’s why it’s needed.”
David Brooks can be reached at 594-6531 or dbrooks@nashua telegraph.com. Also, follow Brooks on Twitter (@GraniteGeek).
It seems that the solution should be to be clear that the selectmen can delegate the task to a licensed land surveyor.
An opportunity for a local LS.
Unfortunately, most of the towns that perform the perambulation have Licensed Land Surveyors on staff.
There are only 3-4 towns that have an LLS on staff.
If not most towns don't want to spend the coin.
In my town the town engineer didn't and documented it well.
The only issue I had is one monument was disturbed, so he had it reset by his staff.
in the town I live in, the select board has been too busy trying to create taxable lots when the GIS map shows any gores based on adjacent deeds not "matching up." I'm not sure what the status of the law suit is, but like most little towns in NH, they would rather do anything than what they are legally supposed to.
[sarcasm]Well if they don't want to perform their selectman duties..There are other older traditions.[/sarcasm]
The NH Municipal Association performed a survey in 2010 about perambulations in NH, Perambulation Survey Results. Interesting that most seem to be aware of the requirement, just not a priority. As has been mentioned, selectmen spending money is second only to proposing a sales tax as great evils in in our great state.
Problem I've run into is conflicting corners: which stone is it? Perambulations from different years reference different stones chiseled with different dates. And no, I had nothing to do with all the paint...
> “The purpose of it is to make sure that the physical markers on the ground are on there, to guide us where the town line is. All the GPS in the world won’t do that. It’s nice and helpful, but it doesn’t replace the fact that the bounds are out there,” he said.
I like Mr. Burfords attitude.
Hey Paul
Where is that? It looks familiar.
Jim in southern NH
That is at the intersection of the Newbury, Sutton, and New London town lines.