More Old Roads in Hanover

By Barbara Barker
February 1999 (Part 2)

As I suggested in my last article many of the early houses were located on secluded ways. The House at Cricket Hollow was located on such a lane and the path can still be found today in the woods behind the Cardinal Cushing School. However not known to many is an ancient highway from Scituate to Abington which led by this house. According to Charles Gleason it branched off the Towne Way (River St./Broadway)) and crossed the Third Herring Brook on the Mill dam at the Stockbridge saw and grist mill. (Some know this location as Tiffany Pond (Norwell). This ancient road crossed the Country Road (Washington St.) near Al Sullivans and on through the woods passing the old Randall house (now gone) avoiding Randall’s Swamp, coming into the Drinkwater Road (Hanover St.) near the “Beehive” (an old house located about where the tennis courts are now situated) The highway then continued along the old Drinkwater road.

Another ancient road described in one on Charles Gleason’s notebooks is one that “led from Scituate to the ‘Indian Ponds’ in Hanson. …this roughly hewn out road came across what is now Norwell to Mill St. in Hanover, then across by Pine St. to what is called Birch Bottom Road , to the north end of Grove St., following that street to its end on Center St., then across thru a wood road to the Morrill Phillip’s place (947 Broadway), then across to the Joe Church place(1010 Broadway) and thru his woods to the river. (Indian Head) across this bridge (long gone) and following the ridge thru the door yard of the once Dwelley place , following the higher levels across to the Indian Ponds.” Gleason explored this route in his wagon and on foot. finding several cellar holes, once homes of early settlers. Much of the this area is in back of the Morrill Phillips estate and is now a Wild Life Conservation area. Parts of Birch Bottom Road are still visible as a path opposite the north end of Grove St.

Another early roadway went south from Plain St. over Brisco’s Plain and the long gone Hanmer’s cellar to join the above mentioned roadway near the present Grove St.
Hanmer’s Hook was another little path in this area.

Mr. Gleason also mapped out the Four Corners as it looked before 1734. The Towne Way (Broadway) was 50 yards east of its present location.The oldest house still standing in Hanover (168 Broadway) built in 1693 or before, faced the old highway. But now Broadway passes the back of the original old Cape, and that is what we view of the house from Broadway today.

That Curtis St. (now Main St.) was one of the earliest laid out roadways is evident by the houses still standing built in the early 1700’s, many of them by Curtises. It met the Drinkwater Road (Hanover St.) near the geographical center of the town, and that intersection became the governmental center of the town. Going south the land rises, and just beyond the big curve is a hill called Sullivan Hill by those around in the early 1900’s, and Nick Hill by those here in the 1800’s.

Another old street on which many old families lived was Torrey ’s Lane, now called Winter St. Several families of Torreys, Wings, and Tildens lived here, but most of the old houses are long gone.

Dwelley and Simmons say that Indian Way Stone is located “on the hill back of the house of the late William Whiting.(Whiting St.) It is said to have marked the Indian Trail from the Bridgewaters east, across the ‘Stepping stones’, past the spring at Assinippi…”

Purr Cat Lane, now know as Spring Street was probably the home to a few wild cats, whose purring may have alarmed the early settlers on that street. At the end of Purr Cat Lane another lane provided a way to the mill at Project Dale on the Indian Head River. (It is shown by a dotted line on the Henderson/Phillips 1850 Map of Hanover)

If you study that 1850 Map, you will note that the present Webster St. in North Hanover was reconfigured to include part of North St, including the so called “London Bridge” (which crossed Longwater Brook) and Walnut Street. North and Walnut Streets are just short little roads now, and a great part of each has been incorporated into the present Webster St.

On the 1850 map you can find the dwelling place of R. Shimmon on the Country Road near Mill St. on the corner of Henry’s Lane. Henry’s Lane headed west to another little dwelling then unoccupied. Just when this old lane disappeared I do not know, but the name and approximate location has been resurrected in the Old Town Way/ Acorn Circle area.

In 1904 the first so called paved or tarred roads were begun. Washington St. starting at the North River bridge was paved by the State to the end of Rockland St. at the top of Folly Hill. The paving was planned to continue to Hanover St. and thence Main St. to Boston. However the State changed its mind and the paving stopped at Spring St. and went back to Washington St. and headed toward Boston on the old Country Road.

To bring us to closer to the present time, we must mention Columbia Rd. which was put through by the State about 1930 cutting a more or less straight line from near Dr. Robert’s Animal Hospital to the top of the hill in Pembroke crossing the North River with a new bridge (recently repaired) at the Pembroke line. This road cut through the Sylvester’s pasture, and the state built a tunnel for the cows to get from one side of the street to the other. It was not too successful, however, as it often filled with water and was not of much use. Who knows exactly where this tunnel was?

Roads and by-ways have interesting stories to tell. One observation by John Goldthwait: Wherever the old roads curved, there was often an old house. Did they built their houses on the curve of the road so they could see who was coming and going?

(The 1850 Maps to which I have referred have been reproduced and can be purchased for $5 at the Stetson House, as can the Historical Society Calendars, which picture many of the old scenes of Hanover of which I write)