West Tisbury town administrator Jen Rand picked up her phone last week and heard the words no one has heard in at least three decades.

“The police station called me and said we’d like to use the fence viewers,” Ms. Rand told the town selectmen on Wednesday. And so the ancient position whose relevance had been questioned in recent weeks was called back into service to resolve a matter of two neighbors irritated over tree cutting between their properties off Great Plains Road. By all accounts the fence viewers, Joan Ames and Jim Powell, performed admirably.

“Jim had the tools of the trade which is a tape measure and orange flagging and so we were able to determine the property line. I mean you would have thought we’d been on this forever,” Ms. Ames said at the Wednesday meeting with a laugh.

A position legally established in Massachusetts in 1693, fence viewers nominally supervise the maintenance of fences in town, especially as it pertains to trespassing livestock, but they can also be used to resolve border disputes. For decades it has been a largely symbolic position and last month selectmen had questioned whether it was necessary to retain the office if it served no function.

Although it was the first call of her tenure, Ms. Ames seemed to have already developed a philosophy about the position.

“It’s important for fence viewers not to jump to conclusions or take sides but just listen, so we did,” she said. “Both parties thought they were in the right and thought the other had taken down the trees. It was a conundrum but we decided we’d let sleeping dogs lie and Jim Powell came up with this very good idea: Both parties had seemed to want tree screening so he offered his services. Now this goes beyond what I understand to be the fence viewer’s duties.”

In the fall Mr. Powell has promised to plant the trees between the properties while one of the property owners supplies the water.

“Everything has calmed back down and I don’t think there will be any future problems with this particular case,” she said.

“Job well done, Joanie,” said selectman Jeffrey (Skipper) Manter 3rd. With Mr. Powell leaving for two months, though, Mr. Manter worried about the capacity of the town’s fence viewing body.

“If there’s a fence viewing emergency we’re in trouble,” he said.

“It is good to have someone else hold the tape,” Ms. Ames admitted.

It is still a mystery who cut whose trees but on Wednesday Ms. Ames was happy for it to remain so.

“That wasn’t the point; the point was to solve the dispute,” she said.

“And plus we knew you needed the work,” said town police chief Dan Rossi.