Ordinance of 1641 restricts public coastal access.

General Court grants owners of coastal property riparian rights to the extreme low tide mark in order to encourage “wharfing out,” the construction of wharves and made land to promote development. The law enables Boston access to its waterfront, which Walter Muir Whitehill later calls “[The avenue to Boston from the part of the world that really mattered.” But it it restricts public passage through private coastal property in Massachusetts and today’s Maine to those engaged in “fishing, fowling, or navigating.” Subsequent tidal regulations ae passed in 1866.*