To the Editor:

Toward the end of her article in the May issue about local street and road names, Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo wonders whether anyone in town knows anything of “the Windrows,” who might have given their name to Windrow Road.

I think the name actually comes not from a family but from a physical feature found adjacent to the road.

Crissey’s “History of Norfolk” mentions (p. 336) “the winrow” while describing the course of one of the early roads through town in the area that Windrow Road traverses.  A “windrow” (the more usual spelling) is a long row of hay laid out for drying, but I believe it was used here to refer to the the high, steep-sided esker, or “windrow,” of glacially deposited sand and gravel, that runs between West Side road and the south shore of Tobey Pond.  While the modern Windrow Road cuts across this narrow ridge, I think it originally followed alongside this feature and connected with West Side Road at a point further south.

Thank you for the interesting article on local street and road names.

—Peter Lawrence