Manure Measurers, Then and Now: Special Town Meeting to Determine Their Fate on November 6

By Sharon McDonald

Bedford Town Meeting soon will vote on whether to remove the offices of Fence Viewer and Wood, Bark and Manure Measurer from the Selectmen’s appointments. Fence Viewer? Manure Measurer??? What are these eccentric positions? I had a hunch that they went back to colonial times, but needed to satisfy my curiosity. This is what I found:

The first Town Meeting that Bedford held at its founding in 1729 included an election of town officers. In addition to five Selectmen, a Town Clerk, two Constables, and a Treasurer, they chose two Fence Viewers, two Tithingmen, two Surveyors, two Hog Reeves, two Field Drivers and a Sealer of Weights and Measures (presumably including Wood, Bark, and Manure?). The roster seems odd now, but the townspeople were not being eccentric. Every Massachusetts town had these officers. I found descriptions of their duties in the contemporary Massachusetts General Laws:

Fence Viewers, logically, dealt with disputes over fences. They did not deliberate on where the fences were placed, however, but on how they were repaired. Neighbors were each responsible for their own side of a fence. Should a fence or stone wall need to be fixed and one man not do his part, the other man would appeal to a fence viewer, who determined the need for repair and suggested the delinquent get to the job or pay a fine.

Surveyors had a more difficult job. Not only did they keep track of the official location of the roads in town, they had to recruit people to fix those roads. The townsmen themselves provided the labor. Workers would bring their own tools and their own teams of oxen, and work for several days at a time. In the winter, the Surveyors saw to it that the snow was removed or “trod down.” The loophole was, a man could pay to get out of this service, thus making the Surveyor’s job of finding enough men that much harder.

Tithingman is the office I would like to have held. These were required to regulate the taverns, discipline cursers and swearers, and to keep watch for Sabbath Breakers. It was against Massachusetts law to “lye abed” on a Sunday, or to hang about the Meetinghouse door, or to ride one’s horse too fast, or to “strut about or sit on fences” or otherwise desecrate the Lord’s Day. There were fines or even time in the stocks to punish the miscreants. Sabbath breakers would no doubt tremble at the sight of the tithingman, with his two foot long brass tipped staff, coming up the road.

Bedford voted every year to “let the swine run free.” The office of Hog Reeve was important, for swine can be very destructive and damages must be paid when one’s hog roots up the road, the Common, or someone’s property.

Field Drivers had the care of rounding up the other farm animals: horses, mules, asses, neat cattle, sheep, and goats that were wandering on the public ways were driven into the animal pound on the Common. Owners had to pay to retrieve their animals.

But what about that Manure Measurer? Well, that office is more elusive; it doesn’t appear in the Town Records until later, and isn’t in the Mass General Laws. But Wood and Bark Measurer is there. His job was to examine goods brought into town for sale. For each wagonload of wood, bark (and by extension, manure) he would issue a ticket to the driver of the wagon with an estimate of the quantity he carried, his name and the town he came from.  The driver would then pay his fee.

Will the people of Bedford decide they no longer need a Measurer of Wood, Bark and Manure? Do they no longer need a Fence Viewer? The decision will be made by the voters at Bedford Town Meeting on November 6th.