At 02:06 AM 12/07/1999 -0500, you wrote: >Maureen: > I am posting your question to my other 2 list and lets see if anyone can >answer it for you. >Cynthia >Moderator of : >Ct-River-Valley-L@rootsweb.com VTWindso-L@rootsweb.com >CTHartfo-L@rootsweb.com >----- Original Message ----- >From: Maureen Girard <maureen@redshift.com> >To: <CTHARTFO-L@rootsweb.com> >Subject: [CTHARTFO] Re: Odd jobs >> Does anyone know what a "fence viewer" was? I have several ancestors who >were >> identified as such, but I've never been quite clear as to what they did, >or why. >> >> Maureen Hi, Maureen: Unlike "hog reeve" or "sealer of leather" whose functions are quite obscure to us today, the "fence viewer" had a position that still makes sense. The duties were (and in many towns in Vermont probably still are) to view the condition of fences along property lines and the public highways, to ensure that whatever was supposed to stay in stayed in, and whatever was supposed to stay out stayed out. The usual issue would have been to prevent the wandering of livestock, of course. Cows and pigs are not finicky about whose corn they eat. A fence viewer is a government official whose duties are preventive, like a building inspector or health department inspector. I have always imagined that the best fence viewers used their position to "check up on" their neighbors, in the sense of looking out for them; or in the sense of keeping reasonable tabs on who was up to what, in case the question arose (for example): "Who's been making more hard cider than he and his family can drink, lately?" I don't think there were actual police powers attached to the job. As I said, though, these are my speculations. One of my prized possessions is a letter from the Town of Springfield, Vermont, in recognition of my grandfather's many years of service as a fence viewer for the town. He, Derrick Allen Dutton of the Dutton District in Springfield, was born in 1905 and died in 1985. I gather that the position was largely ceremonial in recent years, but it still remains true that "good fences make good neighbors," as Robert Frost wrote in "Mending Wall." Darrell Darrell A. Martin formerly of Springfield, Vermont currently in exile in Addison, Illinois darrellm@sprynet.com