Quitclaim deal may clear tangled web of land lines

CORNWALL — It never comes as much of a surprise to hear another story of a convoluted use of land. A couple of centuries or more of uses that may or may not jibe with actual land ownership, of families who owned adjoining lots and didn’t worry about precisely where the line was drawn, and the creation of back lots without concern for future access often makes for a jumbled bag of land rights.

It’s always interesting to hear the back stories. It’s not so interesting to have to sort out easements and pay surveyors and lawyers.

But sometimes there is a happy ending. Residents will consider at the annual Town Meeting on Oct. 26 a property swap where it appears everybody wins.

The new owners of a house adjacent to the Village Green are trying to fix up the property. In the process, they are finding that the stone piers, picket fence and line of maples that supposedly define the property boundaries are not accurate.

The house is part of one of the oldest developed properties in Cornwall. It was owned by the Kellogg family during most of the 1800s. During the earlier part of that century, the family operated the Kellogg Store, which was vital to the village and the students at the Cornwall Mission School.

Whoever lived in the house accessed it by driving in along the eastern edge of the Village Green from Pine Street, property they own. A new plan to construct a driveway farther east on Pine Street revealed that the town actually owns part of the property’s front yard. That narrow swatch along Pine Street is less than a tenth of an acre, but it comprises the property’s entire frontage.

So a quitclaim deal is proposed. No money will change hands. The homeowners will get what they thought was their entire yard. The town will own the entire green.

Well, not quite. It couldn’t be that easy.

As a matter of interest rather than town meeting action, many moons ago, a portion of property owned by the United Church of Christ, across from the Bolton Hill Road meetinghouse, was sold to the Lutherans and St. Peter’s was built. The UCC still owns a piece of the southwest corner of the Green.