If the term "ancient roads" actually appears in the historical documents related to this (not sure if it does or not), it could say more about Vermont's Francophone past than anything else. In French it would be appropriate to call these "ancient roads" (anciennes rues) in the sense that they're "old" or "former" roads, like how ancién regime just means "former regime."

Same! Reminds me of the old adage: "Americans need to learn a hundred years is not a long time just like Europeans need to learn a hundred miles is not a long distance."

I have family in Switzerland who, IIRC, are living in a ~700 year old farm house that doesn't qualify as historic because it's not old enough (too many other similarly old farm houses for it to be considered rare enough to protect).

Meanwhile, my parents considered an "historic" house in Ohio from around 1900.

Probably lucky it's not considered historic.

One man's quest to install a toilet leads to a bizarre world of archeology: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/world/europe/centuries-of-...

Does this farm house have electricity? Running water? A foundation?

How old is the oldest component? Is it like the Ship of Theseus?

Yeah, they're all a bit Ship of Theseus - giant wood beams, thick stone walls, but many generations worth of interior upgrades.

Maybe you heard it in the comment I was replying to?

And in HN comments, a hundred milliseconds is a long time.

Ok, we'll s/ancient/old/.