What had begun as a seemingly minor trespassing dispute had mushroomed into a mammoth, multifaceted case aimed at determining who, exactly, owned the beach and the Terrace roads leading to it.
Attorneys scrambled to obtain 400-year-old property deeds. Land cases from the 1800s were exhumed and scrutinized. At one point, both the state and the town of Marshfield were involved – each aligned against the Terrace.
Over the 16 years it would slog through the court system, the case would be heard by three different judges, accrue nearly 600 exhibits, and rack up — by one estimate — hundreds of thousands in legal fees.
Source: Beneath picturesque surface, a Marshfield neighborhood at war – The Boston Globe