LEBANON — In a series of votes, the City Council this week rebuffed a request from a family of longtime Lebanon farmers to discontinue public access on four historic roads running through woods that they tap to make maple syrup.
Members of the Patch family, who own Patch Orchards off Route 120 south of downtown Lebanon, decried the City Council action Wednesday night to reclassify Barden Hill, Durkee, Atherton and McCallister roads as Class A trails.
In four separate 8-0 votes, the council chose to maintain access for hikers, mountain bikes, equestrians and snowmobiles. That means sap lines installed by the Patches that cross the roads would need to be either raised or removed.
The Patches warn that keeping the four historic roads near the Enfield town line open to the public could jeopardize their maple sugaring operation, leading to losses that may prompt the sale and development of the land.
“Losing 40% of your revenue, which is what we would potentially lose (in) losing these roads, would essentially shut us down as a farm,” Archie Patch told the City Council during a roughly three-hour discussion held via teleconferencing software.
Patch went on to say that his family may have to sell off portions of their 950-acre property to recoup costs. According to documents filed with the city, the Patches spent more than $2.5 million since 2017 on equipment to support about 50,000 taps.
Meanwhile, the family’s Lebanon-based attorney, Brad Wilder, said on Thursday he will file a lawsuit challenging Lebanon’s new trail classification.
He contends that at least three of the roads — Atherton, McCallister and parts of Barden Hill — aren’t municipally owned and the city lacks adequate evidence to prove they were active in the years leading up a 1968 change in state law.
The City Council’s decision to maintain public access to the trails, some of which might date back hundreds of years, aligns with recommendations of the Lebanon Class VI Roads Advisory Committee.
That group spent months reviewing historic documents and taking testimony before concluding that all four of the historic roads were in-fact public rights of way.
Its stance was later backed up in a memo by Lebanon’s attorney.
“We did not take this lightly. We did not take any of this lightly,” Steve Wood, the committee’s chairman, told the City Council while helping to defend the group’s findings.
Wilder throughout the meeting challenged whether the Class VI group fully considered all legal questions, saying it appears it overlooked a 2020 New Hampshire Supreme Court ruling that governs how towns determine what counts as a road.
Prior to 1968, public roads could be created through a process called “prescription,” which happens when people travel on a roadway for 20 consecutive years without permission from the landowner.
The court, Wilder said, ruled that for roads to be deemed publicly owned, witnesses must recall utilizing them for the two decades leading up to 1968. But Lebanon officials, he said, haven’t found anyone that meets the requirement.
Looking through the city’s records, “I want to dare say most everybody doesn’t have a recollection that dates back far enough,” Wilder said.
Wood responded by pointing to testimony from Lebanon resident Cindy Casale whose grandfather owned and farmed near Barden Hill Road.
In an Aug. 25 letter, she recalled walking the road as a child, which would not have been allowed by her grandfather if it was private property.
Wood said the living relatives of other longtime Lebanon farmers and developers who oversaw the same parcels recount similar stories.
“If we are going to insist that everything — as attorney Wilder appears to be suggesting — that is not direct, firsthand knowledge is unreliable hearsay then people better hustle to get public rights of way figured out because everybody’s going to be dead,” said Wood, a former city councilor.
City officials added that they also relied on what some call the “big three maps” created by cartographers from the 1800s up to the 1930s to inform their findings.
If the Patches choose to abide by the City Council’s decision, they might not have to greatly alter their plans, according to City Manager Shaun Mulholland.
He said during Wednesday’s meeting that the family has already raised the height of many of its sap lines and if they wished to cross the trails, applying for a free permit is all it could take.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.