A mile-long stretch of one of New Hampshire’s most popular recreational trails sits blocked behind heavy concrete barriers, and the dispute has now reached the highest levels of state government. The state attorney general’s office is reviewing the blocked section of the Northern Rail Trail in Andover, where a landowner placed Jersey barriers across the path because he says officials have refused to let him use the corridor to reach his own property. As NHPR and the Concord Monitor reported, Gov. Kelly Ayotte said this week that she hopes the trail will reopen soon.
“Rail trail access is important for people,” Ayotte said during a Wednesday press conference. “I’m glad the attorney general is looking into our, essentially, right-of-way there and making sure we reinforce the right-of-way, making sure all the legal prerequisites are there. But I think we should move forward expeditiously and get this resolved.”
What happened in Andover
The barriers went up late last month, and they were placed at both ends of a mile-long section of the trail near Potter Place. The landowner, Lenny Caron, says the conflict was set off by changes to the Keniston Bridge, a historic covered bridge in town. Those changes blocked access for tall, heavy equipment that Caron had used to reach a gravel pit on his land. With the bridge route cut off, he began using the rail trail to move machinery instead, only to be told that heavy equipment is not permitted on the trail.
Caron says he then researched the property’s deeds and concluded that the state, not he, lacks the rights to the land in question. He claims old deeds show the state “had no rights to the land,” and that conclusion led him to barricade the corridor. For now, graffiti covers the concrete barriers that sit across the path.
The state sees the corridor differently. New Hampshire bought the former Boston & Maine rail line in 1995, and the route has served as a well-used biking and hiking trail for many years. The New Hampshire Department of Transportation, which oversees rail trails, has posted a sign warning that “the closure may remain in place for some time.” At the moment, the only way for trail users to get around the blockage is to detour onto Route 4, a state highway, which raises obvious safety concerns for cyclists and walkers.
A rare kind of dispute
Ayotte acknowledged the public frustration and the oddity of the situation. “Let’s face it, it has been there for a while, so you think every property owner would understand this is an existing rail trail that people use,” she said.
Her point gets at what makes the Andover case unusual. Disputes over access to abandoned rail corridors are common while a trail is still being planned and assembled, when the state is piecing together easements and rights-of-way parcel by parcel. It is far less common for someone to physically block a trail that has already been open and in steady public use for years. The Andover barricade essentially reopens a legal question most users assumed was settled three decades ago.
The stakes extend well beyond a single mile of path. The Northern Rail Trail runs 59 miles from Boscawen to Lebanon along the corridor once used by the Boston and Maine Railroad, making it one of the longest continuous rail trails in the state. It connects to the Merrimack River Greenway trail now under development in Concord, part of a growing network that ties communities together for recreation and low-stress transportation. Statewide, New Hampshire has more than 330 miles of public trails either built or in development on former railbeds, according to state documents. A successful challenge to the state’s right-of-way in one town could ripple outward to others.
Why the right-of-way question matters
At the heart of the conflict is a familiar tension in New Hampshire, a state that prizes both private property rights and public access to the outdoors. Caron’s argument rests on his reading of historic deeds, while the state rests on its 1995 purchase of the corridor and decades of uninterrupted public use. Resolving which interpretation controls is exactly the kind of question the attorney general’s office is now examining, and it is why Ayotte framed the issue around reinforcing the right-of-way and confirming that “all the legal prerequisites are there.”
That review carries practical weight. If the state’s right-of-way is confirmed, officials would have a clear legal basis to remove the barriers and restore access. If the deed history proves more complicated, the case could become a drawn-out legal matter with implications for how the state documents and defends its trail corridors going forward. Either way, the governor signaled she wants speed, urging the state to move “expeditiously.”
Part of a busy season for NH trail disputes
The Andover standoff is not happening in isolation. New Hampshire’s rail trail network has been the subject of repeated legal and design fights, including a high-profile dispute in Derry where a federal judge ordered the state to honor its original tunnel design for cyclists near the Exit 4A project. As the network grows, so do the friction points between trail users, landowners, and the agencies that manage the corridors.
The timing is also sensitive because summer is peak season for the trails. New Hampshire’s outdoor economy leans heavily on recreation, and the state is bracing for another busy stretch of summer tourism across its attractions and outdoor destinations. Trail closures and detours onto highways land hardest in the months when ridership is highest. The Andover blockage also arrives just as the White Mountains see their own access changes, including the planned closure of the Lincoln Woods Trail for major repairs, and as Fish and Game continues to emphasize safety for those heading out on New Hampshire’s trails.
For now, the barriers remain, the detour runs along Route 4, and the resolution rests with the attorney general’s review. Trail users hoping for a quick reopening can take some encouragement from the governor’s stated urgency, but the underlying question of who holds the rights to that mile of corridor will have to be answered first.
