From the November 12, 1965 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:

The state highway, as most people know, extends from the outskirts of Edgartown to Gay Head Light by way of Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven, passing through these towns.

But long before that, the term State Road referred to a small percentage of the Island’s mileage in highways.

The state highway began at Look street in Vineyard Haven and extended westerly to Fred Norton’s Hill, when the first water-bound macadam road was built. And it was surprising how little interest the road aroused at the time. Men mentioned it with comment both favorable and unfavorable, some declaring that the hard surface was bad for horses, wore out tires, and jarred passengers.

Behind the scenes, town authorities up and down the Island were devising ways and means for getting some of that “hard road” for their own bailiwicks, and when at last, the highway crossed the Tisbury town line, the saga of the state road began.

Although a time came when the surfaced road extended to the westernmost limit of the Island, there were oldtimers who referred only to that part which lay between North Tisbury and the Tisbury town line when they mentioned the state road.

In the construction of this stretch of highway there were many local men employed both at unskilled labor, and at tasks which, originally, had been performed by experienced workmen imported for the purpose. There were more Island men who conversed with the voices of authority of the big things that were going on.

The layout, which had been accepted by the state, had been made long before, without attracting attention.

“John Crowell was surveying somewhere along by the High Woods,” might have been the comment, but what for no one bothered to ask although some knew all the answers.

Once the work started there was talk, for there were Island men holding contracts for construction. Allen Look of West Tisbury owned the stone-crusher, steam roller and other equipment. His engineer was Henry Lyman Thomas of Edgartown, and William Smith of North Tisbury was a foreman of sorts over the gang that was hand-grading.

And there were selectmen behind the scenes who were expert at fighting and when the specificatione were available, they made unfavorable comment.

“Now Bill Rotch says that there is no need of a road as wide as they want,” was the word. “Bill says that we can build it eighteen inches narrower, which leaves plenty of room for two wagons to pass, and we can gain half a mile in length.”

This is one of the reasons why the bound stones, set long, long ago, can only be found today by raking over the dead leaves far from the shoulders of the present state road. Of course the state department of Public Works did not intend to surface the full width of the accepted layout, but it had not planned a road as narrow as the original.

Macadamized road was constructed with a high crown in the middle to better drain the surface, and even before a section of the road was completed, large white-painted signs with black lettering were planted at regular intervals. The signs read: “Don’t drive in the middle of the road!”

The object was to preserve this crown, but as driving on the side tilted a buggy seat and made things harder for the horse as well, few persons paid attention to the signs. One of those who did was the Bill Rotch previously mentioned. As chairman of the board of selectmen of West Tisbury, William J. Rotch took a keen interest in any town business and he did a great deal of supervising when the state road was built. And woe to the teamster or buggy-riding sport he caught driving in the middle of the highway.

In the week that the surfacing was completed to the edge of North Tisbury, half a dozen red-hot sports of the day assembled at the beginning of the straight stretch and had a horse race.

As a matter of fact, this relatively straight stretch became a favored place for men to meet who looked for a brush with an acquaintance, and many a bushel of oats changed hands as a result of such meetings. When old-timers mentioned the state road, they had in mind some of the roisterers of whom they disapproved and when the muttered about seeing someone down on the state road, it amounted to an accusation.

There were upright men who enjoyed a horse race and by the same token there were others who held that horse racing was one of the seven deadly sins, and the activities “below Middletown” aroused some of these latter to a point where they proceeded to take steps.

Already the plans were being made to extend the state highway through West Tisbury and there had been strong objections to the construction of a “turnpike road” along “the flat”, which extended (and still does) from the edge of the woods near Priester’s Brook, then Zadox Athearn’s, to the race-track corner, near West Tisbury cemetery.

But when that time arrived, the saga of the state road had ended.

Compiled by Hilary Wallcox

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