Dear Editor:
Bring back the hog reeve!
As I was reading the June 27, 2025 issue of the Wayland Post, I came upon an item in the Public Safety Log that alarmed me. On Tuesday, June 17 at 2:55 p.m., “a resident of Concord Road called to report a potbelly pig was in their front yard.”
In the first decades after Sudbury’s (now Wayland’s) incorporation in 1639, the matter of a neighbor’s pig rooting in your garden was nothing to smile at. The wayward hog might quickly destroy all of the potatoes, turnips and carrots that a household depended on to feed them through a severe winter. At every year’s town meeting, one of the minor town posts that needed to be filled was the hog reeve, also known as the swine warden. The hog reeve’s assigned task was to respond quickly to a report of wandering swine, to wrestle it into submission, and affix a nose ring on it. The nose ring prevented the hog from rooting up a garden plot.
This was young man’s work, and not an office many actively campaigned to fill. Nonetheless, Edmund Goodnow, one of the original settlers of the town, held the post of swine warden three times in the years between 1638 and 1655. I think it is time to bring back the office of the hog reeve to combat the scourge of rampant swine spreading havoc in the quiet hamlet of Wayland.
Steven Liszewski
Boston Post Road
Letters (max 400 words) from Wayland residents only must be emailed — one per writer per month — to editor@waylandpost.org by 5 p.m. Friday for the next print edition and must include the writer’s name, street address, and phone for verification (anonymous submissions are rejected). Letters are printed with the writer’s name and street and may be edited for length, style, clarity, or to remove personal attacks, unverified or libelous claims, offensive language, or other inappropriate content. Replies must cite the headline and date of the item referenced without naming prior writers, election letters will not appear in the issue immediately before Election Day, publication is at the editor’s discretion, and opinions expressed are the writers’ own.
