Acton Select Board Members Jim Snyder-Grant and Dean Charter met their counterparts from Littleton to “mark the monuments,” a centuries-old English tradition last observed there on that side of Acton in 1986. (Select Board members marked the monuments at the intersection with Stow and Boxborough in November, 2016; those monuments had been marked previously in 2005.) Modern surveying methods and GPS have long-since made physical markers obsolete. But Massachusetts General Law 42 still requires every municipality’s executives to meet their neighbors and mutually agree on borders every five years. Failure to do so can result in a fine of $5, though no one knows of any recent enforcement of the statute. Jim’s and Dean’s interest in restoring the tradition of “perambulation” had more to do with historical curiosity and shared neighborly courtesy than regulatory compliance.
Representing Littleton, Select Board member Mark Rambacker and Andy Curran of the Littleton Historical Society met up with Jim and Dean in the Grassy Pond Conservation Area parking lot on June 2. Other participants included Linda Stein from the Littleton Historical Commission, Joe Cooney from the Acton Conservation Trust, and this reporter. We carpooled down Nagog Hill Road to the first boundary marker. Standing about three feet tall, the four-sided granite post is etched with “A” for Acton on one side and “L” for Littleton on the other. Under their town’s respective letter, Dean and Mark each carefully painted “2025” in black. Acton’s side was also etched with “1831.” Dean blackened the carving to make the date prominent for at least the next five years. The team proceeded to mark a total of five post sites. The most challenging aspect of the adventure was walking through the sloping boulders of the Acton Water District land abutting the south shore of Nagog Pond. Near the site of the Nashoba Praying Indian village, the woods contained ancient Indian cairns, undated monuments of another sort.
Along the way, we chatted about historical street names, this year’s Town Meetings, water rights to Nagog Pond, success in recruiting candidates for town offices, and which town’s Highway Department should be responsible for righting a monument knocked down by a car collision near Nashoba Road and Great Road. The Littleton party expressed admiration for our “Acton Exchange” and its mission of providing local news dedicated to bias-free reporting by volunteers. “We lost our local news source in Littleton,” said Linda Stein of the Littleton Historical Commission. “If it weren’t for ‘Action Unlimited,’ nobody would know what was going on in town.”
Now that the Acton-Littleton borders are re-established, Jim plans to schedule more monument-marking trips this spring with representatives from the other abutting towns: Boxborough, Carlisle, Concord, Maynard, Stow, Sudbury, and Westford. Once complete, he, Dean, and the other Select Board members will be able to hang up the paint brush for the next five years without fear of a fine.
Rob Gogan is a West Acton resident. He often writes about nature and the environment for the Acton Exchange, and compiles our monthly Nature Watch feature.