Fitzwilliam Road

About the same time that settlers came to Jaffrey they came to Fitzwilliam, and both towns were incorporated in 1773. The first of the four roads laid out by Jaffrey, in October 1773, was Fitzwilliam Road. The layout began about where the present Old County Road branches off toward the Horizon Hill Farm.¹ The transcript reads:

“Beginning at the County Road on Lot 3, Range 7 about 40 rods from the East line and running Southerly to the South line of said lot, then Southerly about 50 rods on Lot 3, Range 8, thence Southwesterly off of South about 80 rods from the Southwest comer, thence running about Southwesterly on Lot 2, Range 8 off of said lot, then on Lot 2, Range 9 to the South line, thence running about Southwesterly to the town line. 2 rods wide.”²

The road thus laid out would be about 1.7 miles in length (the entire Fitzwilliam Road now is about 2.8 miles). From Fitzwilliam Road a traveller could have reached Borland’s mills on the Contoocook either via Old Fitzwilliam Road and past Gilmore Pond, or alternatively via the Mountain Road and through the Center on the road laid out in April 1774.³ Within a few years after the Revolution a string of fine farms stretched along Fitzwilliam Road from the town line to the Mountain Road. These belonged respectively to the Marshalls (now Cipolla’s), Joseph Perkins (now Russell Smith’s), Spauldings (now Morgan’s) Ross’s, later David Spauldings (now Allies’), Lt. David Gilmore (now Warfield’s). Previous to 1850 the history of Fitzwilliam Road revolves largely around construction projects from the Spaulding farm in one direction or another.⁴ At the northern end of Fitzwilliam Road Lt. David Gilmore, who owned the place where the Warfields live now, also had problems with regard to the road that went past his house. There is an 1801 transcript of an exchange of a portion of road 40 rods long to the new turnpike in place of the old road.⁵ An 1806 transcript describes a road north from David Gilmore’s east line on Fitzwilliam Road to the road leading from the turnpike to Jonathan Emery’s meadow).⁶ In 1818 there was a new lay out from the south side of the turnpike east of Gilmore’s line to the Fitzwilliam Road.7 The Warfields eliminated the problem in 1971 by having the road discontinued from their house to the turnpike (Route 124), since a section of new road had been built from Route 124 that would run in its place.⁸ The discontinued portion reverted to the landowners. In 1834 Abel Marshall received damages for a new road (Scott Pond Road) leading over his land from Eliphalet Johnson’s to Capt. Perkins,⁹ and in 1844 Marshall obtained an adjustment of the road between his house and the Fitzwilliam line.¹⁰ In 1841 David Spaulding, who then occupied the Ross farm (red brick house now belonging to Ames), had the road altered SW from the bridge near his house, and agreed to build the new piece himself.¹¹ This was apparently in response to an article included in the previous year to see if the town would make an alteration in the road near his house, which had been left discretionary with the selectmen. Throughout its early history Fitzwilliam Road remained in a patchy state that gave rise to repeated requests for improvement. The selectmen were cautious about undertaking anything on a large scale. In 1795 an article was included in the warrant:

“To see if the town will do anything about straightening or discontinuing the road from the County Road SE from Moses Rider’s (near the Heil place), thence by Joseph Perkins (Russell Smith’s) to the Fitzwilliam line.”¹²

It was voted to choose a committee and report. By 1808 petitioners from Fitzwilliam went to court. Their petition:

“…humbly shewith, that they together with the citizens of the county of Cheshire aforesaid and the neighboring towns in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts sustain great inconvenience in consequence of the badness and crookedness in summer, and narrowness which is the cause of almost impassable snow drifts in winter, of a part of the road as it is now travelled from Fitzwilliam village to Jaffrey meeting house viz. from Robinson Perkin’s Esqrs by Capt. Edward Spaulding’s to Mr Abraham Ross’s…that the land by nature is as well formed for a road on a straight or nearly a straight direction as where it is now travelled, and that straightening and widening will greatly facilitate the keeping in Repair as well as travelling said Road…that the town of Jaffrey in which said piece of road lies have been requested as the law directs to straighten and widen the same…that they have hitherto refused so to do…”¹³

Wherefore the petitioners prayed for the appointment of a committee, in which the court obliged them. A new piece of road was duly laid out, 3 rods wide, from approximately John Heil’s to the Ames’ place, which the court ordered to be opened by October 1839.

At town meeting in 1839 an article was included: “To see if the Town will choose a Committee to examine a route from the middle of Jaffrey to the middle of Fitzwilliam and report at some future meeting.”¹⁴ The vote was that “the last clause of this article be dispensed with”. When the same proposal came up again the following year, it was voted to take no action. The town did agree, however, to appoint a committee to examine routes from Troy and Fitzwilliam through Jaffrey to Nashua.¹⁵

In the 1830’s there was some agitation for a new road from Troy through Fitzwilliam and Jaffrey to Rindge. Such a road was laid out by court-appointed commissioners in 1837, with a Jaffrey piece about a half mile in length along the town line north of Fitzwilliam; but Jaffrey never built its portion, and the court “discontinued” that part in 1839. (See Troy-Fitzwilliam-Jaffrey-Rindge Road.) Supporters of the road made one more try in 1842, with renewed petitions to the selectmen of Jaffrey and to the court in Keene.¹⁶ The decision was “Adverse for the Prayer of Petitioners”. In the present century Fitzwilliam Road was presentably surfaced. Successive town votes show the rising costs. In 1934 the town voted:

“to raise $1,000 to be used for tarring one mile of new gravel road on the Fitzwilliam Road from the residence of George A. Adams (Warfield), extending west one mile…as petitioned for by Hugh Morgan and others.”¹⁷

In 1968 the town voted to appropriate $11,030.04 for the purpose of making improvements to Fitzwilliam Road.¹⁸ In 1971 $38,000 was appropriated for improvements.¹⁹ In addition to the alteration and discontinuance of a portion of the road near the Warfield residence in 1971, there was one other major alteration in 1971-72, when a portion of new road was built around the Russell Smith residence (old Perkins place) and the old road, approximately 2,100 feet in length, was discontinued and deeded to the Smiths.20 The Smiths donated the land and contributed $5,000 toward the costs of construction of the new road.