The Martha’s Vineyard Commission last Thursday heard emotional testimony from an Edgartown property owner opposed to new guidelines for the protection and maintenance of five ancient pathways in Edgartown, each of which dates back to colonial times.

Benjamin Hall Jr., an Island attorney whose family owns land off Ben Tom’s Road, one of the ways that would fall under the proposed guidelines, said they had been hastily drafted and would deny his family the right to develop their property.

Middle Line Road is not much of a road. But it’s a heck of a legal problem, as quickly became evident when the controversy over its 270-year history and uncertainty over its future use landed in the Dukes County superior court in Edgartown this week.

The essence of the case is simple enough.

The Hall family, which owns land alongside the road, wants to improve it. To that end, they engaged contractors to cut trees and widen it.

The latest round in a dispute pitting a landowner’s right of access against conservation values played out like a game of cat and mouse in town hall, the courts and the woods of Edgartown last week.

It began a little before 10 a.m. on Friday morning, when Paul Elliott, the president of the Edgartown Meadows Road Association, found workmen cutting down trees along Middle Line Road.

In the weeks ahead, a group of Edgartown residents plans to take a new step to preserve and protect the town's ancient ways and
roads.

As many as 30 volunteers will be sworn in by the town as byway
wardens. Their mission will be to keep an eye out for illegal dumping
and misuse.