Highways Legal Definitions

Below is an excerpt from a book on highway laws for the state of New York. I find the definitions and the terms interesting for use in a novel.

WHAT ARE HIGHWAYS?
A highway, at common law, is a right of passage for the public in general, without distinction. The term "highway" extends to all public ways, and includes carriageways, horseways, footways, streets, turnpike and plank roads, railroads,' ferries, canals and navigable rivers. These different kinds of highways are distinguished from each other only by the mode of their use, the material of which they are composed, or by the manner in which the costs of construction and maintenance are defrayed.

Public piers or landing places are highways {Rodway v. Briggs, 37 N. Y. R. 256; People v. Lambier, 5 Denio, 9; Fowler v. Moft, 19 Barb. 204); so also are public squares, parks, etc.
In the statute law of this state the word "road" is used synonymously with "highway." {Bracer. iV. Y. Central R. R. Co., 271ST. Y. R. 269.)

The size of the way is not material; a public footway or bridleway is a highway for foot passengers or horse passengers [Rex v. County of Salop, 13 East, 95), and a public carriageway is not restrained because all carriages cannot pass and repass. {Rex v. Lyon, 3 Dow. & R. 497.)

There was formerly a way termed driftway, over which cattle were driven; but this is now included in the term "highway," since it is well settled that a public highway is open to cattle being driven from one place to another. {Basilar dv. Dyson, 1 Taunt. 285.)

In this state the public have no highway along the margins of the navigable rivers and lakes, unless such a right has been acquired by express grant or by prescription. {Ledyardv. Ten Eyek, 36 Barb. 10'2.)

And, although a navigable river is a highway, yet, if an individual, having authority from the legislature, erect a wharf on the bank, such wharf is strictly private property, although it extend into the river and diminish the breadth of the stream, and the public cannot claim free access to it. (Wetmore v. Atlantic White Lead Co., 37 Barb. 70.) However, if a highway terminate in a navigable river, and the owner of the fee on the bank builds a bulk-head in the river in front of his land and the street, and fills in the intervening space, the highway is not thereby cut off from the river, but continues over such bulkhead to the water. {People v. Lambier, 5 Denio, 9.)