3/7/1940 · AFFIDAVIT · book 28 page 172 doc 28@28/172

172 STATE OF RHODE ISLAND) COUNTY OF WASHINGTON) SS.: GEORGE S. PECKHAM does and says that he is a member of the Narragansett Tribe of Indians, 55 years of age, and resident since birth upon lands lying immediately to the eastward of and adjoining Indian Cedar Swamp in said county, which said lands upon which he resides and has always resided having formerly been Tribal Lands of said Narragansett Tribe, conveyed by said Tribe to the State of Rhode Island, by deed delivered to the duly appointed Commissioners of said state, on May 15, 1880; the portion of said lands which had theretofore been occupied by the grantors of said Peckham, having thereafter (viz., in the year 1889 or thereabouts) been reconveyed by said state to his said grantors and, having been continuously occupied by him and by since said grantors and by him since said date of reconveyance to his said grantors; That he, the said Peckham, and his grantors and other ancestors before him, having occupied and lived upon said lands since early times, is exceeding familiar with the uses made of said land and of adjacent lands for the past hundred years or thereabout, and were always in use by the public generally (though to a less extent in recent years than formerly) certain roads, which were always regarded as public roads, adjacent to and entering upon said Indian Cedar Swamp, and particularly certain roads on the eastern side of said Indian Cedar Swamp connecting said Swamp with the Old Mill Road lying between Wood River Junction and Charlestown; that said roads, connecting with the easterly side of Indian Cedar Swamp, were in early times known as Indian Roads, but that the special tribal rights of the Indians therein were, by the aforesaid deed of May 15, 1880, conveyed by said Indians on said date to State of Rhode Island for the use and benefit of the said State and of the people thereof, including said Indians; That certain of said roads having of late become obstructed by brush and by trees blown down in recent storms, he, the said Peckham, did of his own good-will, clear said roads from such obstructions, sufficiently to permit the renewed convenient use of said roads by himself and his neighbors, and by the public generally; and said Peckham hereby acknowledges reimbursement by Dr. Harold C. Sands, one of his said neighbors, of the reasonable costs incurred by him, the said Peckham, in removing said obstructions, viz., reimbursement of said costs by said Sands, in the sum of Fifty three Dollars. GEORGE S. PECKHAM Subscribed and sworn to before me, a Notary Public in and for said County of Washington, this 23 day of December 1939. LINTON L. BROWN (Notarial Seal) Notary Public Received for record March 7, 1940 at 4:10 o'clock, p. m., and recorded by [Signature] Town Clerk (See plat filed in Plat Book March 7, 1940)