Vermont, N.H. to verify border
or, Socialists and Free Staters to battle
from Burlington Free Press

Shortly before noon today, Attorney General William Sorrell will meet his New Hampshire counterpart on a bridge over the Connecticut River so they can verify that a nearby granite monument still marks the border between the two states.

It's the first step in a survey the two states have undertaken every seven years since 1933, when the U.S. Supreme Court settled a long-standing dispute over the state lines. A necklace of 112 markers now delineates the border.

This pair of top law enforcement officials meeting on the bridge between Norwich and Hanover will look for a marker that is set near the Vermont side of the river -- because the Green Mountain State lost the court fight.

"Most people don't realize that the Connecticut River is New Hampshire," said Peter Heed, the Granite State's attorney general.

The U.S. Supreme Court consulted documents dating to the 1700s before ruling the line between the two states was the low-water mark on the western side of the Connecticut River.

Later, the governors of two states will arm wrestle to determine which one is more hickish. The governor of Maine declined to attend, saying that VT and NH are just upside down versions of one another, and he had to scrape Moose off his Ford F-150 anyway.

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Shortly before noon today, Attorney General William Sorrell will meet his New Hampshire counterpart on a bridge over the Connecticut River so they can verify that a nearby granite monument still marks the border between the two states.

It's the first step in a survey the two states have undertaken every seven years since 1933, when the U.S. Supreme Court settled a long-standing dispute over the state lines. A necklace of 112 markers now delineates the border.

This pair of top law enforcement officials meeting on the bridge between Norwich and Hanover will look for a marker that is set near the Vermont side of the river -- because the Green Mountain State lost the court fight.

"Most people don't realize that the Connecticut River is New Hampshire," said Peter Heed, the Granite State's attorney general.

The U.S. Supreme Court consulted documents dating to the 1700s before ruling the line between the two states was the low-water mark on the western side of the Connecticut River.

If it seems Vermont was short-changed, consider which state has to pay for bridges, notes Paul Hodge, chief of surveying for the Vermont Agency of Transportation. "We allow them to pay."

Vermont State Archivist Gregory Sanford said the dispute dates to the Revolutionary War period, but broke out in earnest in 1911 when the town of Walpole, N.H., tried to tax International Paper Co. property on former river bottom land in Bellows Falls.

New Hampshire had always claimed it owned to the top of the west bank of the river. Vermont argued the "thread of the river" was the line.

In 1912, the Vermont Legislature instructed the attorney general to take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court. The two sides tried to negotiate a settlement for three more years before Vermont filed a lawsuit in 1915.

The court battle lasted 17 years. The Supreme Court appointed a special master to sort through mountains of records and recommend a boundary.

The dispute also played out along the river bank, according to Sanford.

He tells the story of a Vermonter, Hans Mayer, who dropped a fishing line in the river near Brattleboro in 1920 and found himself in trouble with a New Hampshire fish and game warden. Mayer was fined $31.50 for fishing without a New Hampshire license.

After the court ruled on the boundary, it ordered a special commissioner to put permanent monuments at key points along the border.

Six-foot blocks of granite, each weighing 1,200 pounds, were buried with only about 18 inches showing at specified locations up and down the Vermont side of the river, said Hodge. Each is marked with information about the location of the low-water line.

Hodge has conducted the survey twice before and will spend four or five days in May again verifying the location and condition of all the markers. He will be accompanied by a surveyor from New Hampshire.

Hodge isn't the only one who has thrashed through the underbrush looking for these markers.

Between 1982 and 1995, Scott Taylor of Essex Junction organized weekend canoe trips for land surveyors like himself from both sides of the border. As many as 25 people from the two states would load into 10 or more canoes to paddle sections of the river looking for the markers.

Taylor, president of the Vermont Society of Land Surveyors, said the group covered the entire length of the river and found nearly every marker.

"We would stop wherever we thought one of the monuments was," Taylor said. "It was like a treasure hunt."

posted by prof_booty | 09:20 AM