...that Lincoln’s efforts to thwart “cut through traffic” go way back?
Lincoln’s town center in the 1890s, before the automobile age
For the first 75 years after the town was founded, Lincoln did not bother with an official road survey and map. The roads ran where Lincoln residents needed them. New roads were created, and old ones were closed, by debate and decision in Lincoln’s town meetings. The road “maps” were scrawled descriptions by the town clerk: “thence as the stone wall now stands to a heap of stones at the northwest corner of said orchard fence ...”
In March 1830, the Great and General Court required all towns “to make Surveys of their Territory and return the plans of the same to the Secretary’s office.” The map drawn by John G. Hales in 1830 shows most of the main roads of today’s Lincoln. Another century would pass, however, before Lincoln finally gave official names to its roads.
The town felt strongly that the main roads through Lincoln benefited other towns, but not Lincoln. And so the town resisted. The Concord/Cambridge Turnpike (now Route 2) was a good example. The path of the turnpike was laid out in 1803, and it plowed through hills and wetlands in Lincoln, just so travelers between Cambridge and Concord would have the shortest and straightest route possible. Lincoln fought unsuccessfully against the turnpike, and later the town also resisted straightening the paths of two other roads through town—the Middle Road (now Trapelo Road) and the North Road (now Route 2A).
Lincoln had more success in preventing a major highway from running north and south through the heart of town: To this day, in contrast to neighboring towns, Lincoln does not have a numbered highway running through its town center.
For more on the history of Lincoln’s roads, see Kerry Glass, Tracing the History of Lincoln Ways, 2019. Download it free of charge from the Lincoln Historical Society Bookstore.
Kerry Glass
The Lincoln Historical Society
April 2021
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