LEBANON — A family of longtime Lebanon farmers say a dispute over several old public roads on their property near Route 120 threatens to end their eighth-generation business and undo a $2.5 million investment in maple sugaring equipment.
Matthew and Barbara Patch, the owners of Patch Orchards south of downtown Lebanon, are resisting the city’s calls to relocate or remove sap lines crisscrossing four unmaintained roads — Barden Hill, Durkee, Atherton and McCallister — on 950 acres they purchased in 2017.
The lines are part of a “complex system” they say will someday include 50,000 taps flowing to a collection site downhill, and relocating them would be a “very significant physical and economic hardship.”
The Patches also argue they received city approval to gate the Class VI roads and were surprised by a December 2019 letter from public works officials threatening to cut the sap lines.
“It made us sick to our stomach,” Matthew Patch said outside his sugarhouse on Monday. “There’s been a lot of sleepless nights from all of us.”
Meanwhile, the city says that it is bound by state law to keep Class VI roads clear of obstructions.
While the roads, which once led to homesteads near the Enfield town line, are no longer passable by most cars, there is no evidence the right of ways were formally discontinued, officials say.
“No one can encumber a city road,” City Manager Shaun Mulholland said on Monday. “We have an obligation to make sure that doesn’t occur.”
Lebanon’s City Council is scheduled to discuss the matter on Wednesday, when the nine-member body could vote to discontinue the roads.
The dispute dates back to 2017 when the Patches paid $1.8 million for 950 acres east of Route 120 to aid their growing maple syrup operation, according to court records.
The Patches trace their lineage back to Wetherill Hough, who settled in Lebanon and began farming in 1775.
His descendants tended to the orchards where Patch Orchards now stands and started nearby Walhowdon Farm in 1947.
The Patches’ sons — Joshua, Arthur and Cody — joined the family business and tapped more than 15,000 trees, running lines down to a collection area on Merry Lane.
All the while, the family says, they sought permission to cross old roads.
Barbara Patch approached the city in 2018, initially asking for roads to be discontinued and, after a series of meetings, received permission to install gates “for safety reasons,” according to court documents.
Nearly a year and a half passed before the Patches heard back from the city.
In December 2019, Lebanon Public Works Director Jim Donison wrote to say that a Lebanon conservation ranger had discovered sap lines crossing the road.
“If you fail to act in a reasonable time, the City Manager may order DPW to remove the lines,” the letter said. “The City will not be responsible for damage to the lines if it is forced to act unilaterally.”
That letter, and an additional one from city attorneys dated Jan. 17, led the Patches to request a temporary restraining order in Grafton Superior Court.
In the Jan. 28 request, the farmers argued the roads are “long forested over” and are not passable by car. One of the old roads has a stream running through it, they added.
“Even pedestrians would essentially be ‘bushwhacking’ over most of the remnants,” wrote Patch attorney, Lebanon-based Brad Atwood.
The order, which was granted, goes on to say that removing the sap lines could cost the Patches nearly $500,000 in lost revenue this year.
But the issue has raised concerns from snowmobilers and others about the loss of popular snowmobile and hiking trails and access to prime hunting grounds.
The town of Enfield has also written Lebanon opposing the Patch family’s request.
Matthew Patch said on Monday that those impacted by the road closures will be given other options that don’t interfere with the sap lines.
He said the family is working to help reroute snowmobile trails and is exploring ways to welcome pedestrians to the property.
“We’re certainly trying to work with the public and doing whatever we can,” Matthew Patch said. “We just don’t want people running around in the sap lines.”
But there are good reasons to keep roads city-owned outside of immediate access, Mulholland said.
If Lebanon chooses to discontinue a road, it would either have to pay a landowner or take the property through eminent domain to reopen it, he said.
Officials in Enfield are making that argument. Last week, the town’s Planning Board sent a letter to counterparts in Lebanon requesting they keep the roads.
Atherton and McCallister both link to Methodist Hill Road in Enfield.
But discontinuing them would create “roads to nowhere,” the Enfield Planning Board wrote.
“Years of experience have proven that these historic accesses and rights of way are actually a community asset not to be abandoned haphazardly,” the letter said.
The City Council is scheduled to discuss discontinuing the roads when it meets at 7 p.m. on Wednesday inside the temporary city offices at 20 W. Park St.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.