Smithfield’s “Pig Road”
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Smithfield’s “Pig Road” appears on 19th century maps of the town, but today it is all but gone and forgotten. Yet before it was closed for good in the 1980s, it became the center of some local controversy as to who owned it, and weather it was a public road or a right of way.
The road had always been an unpaved dirt pathway running more or less north and south connecting Austin Avenue to Putnam Pike in West Greenville. The road passed through property owned by the Steere family.
According to an article which appeared in The Observer on August 19, 1982, a 1978 court order gave the road to the Town, but the road was never officially deeded over, and nor was is ever maintained by the D.P.W. This didn’t become an issue until 1982 when the Greenville Water District laid water lines under Pig Road connecting to a water tower under construction on Mapleville Road. This spurred a lawsuit from an abutting property owner maintaining that the water company lacked the authority to lay the pipes because the Town didn’t own the road.
It was noted that in 1978, a U. S. District Court judge had ruled that a landfill company operating on Tarklin Road could improve Pig Road so that large trucks going to and from the landfill could use it as a short cut to Putnam Pike. This decision would no doubt benefit those living on Austin Avenue who would no longer have to endure the trucks passing their homes. However, the court decision was never acted upon and the landfill later closed.
The Town’s position was that it owned the road, but the plaintiff’s lawyer disagreed, and an independent title search revealed that there was no record indicating that Pig Road had ever been officially accepted by the Town. Despite the arguments, the pipes had already been laid, and they would remain, and do so to this day. Yet Pig Road as a right of way is no more. All that remains is the portion leading into the Village at Waterman Lake, and it’s now called Mapleville Road.
Source: The Observer, “Road Or Right Of Way? The Question Remains…”, by John Rufo, August 19, 1982.
1895 Map of West Greenville, R. I.
Click on map to enlarge.
