Kevin McNatt and Andrew Todesco MANSFIELD - Massachusetts law requires each city and town to contact its neighbors every five years and reaffirm the boundaries that separate them. This act is called perambulating and was handed down from ancient traditions in England. Perambulating involves locating and inspecting old granite markers or other landmarks that define town lines. And in the swampy wilds of southeastern Massachusetts that was not always easy. An early example of perambulation occurred on Nov. 26, 1793 when Mansfield selectmen John Dean and Jonathan Newcomb met two selectmen from the Town of Attleborough. They reported the following: “We began at a heap of stones for the southwest corner of Mansfield,” they reported. Next they found a second “heap of stones on ridge hill, on Balcom’s plain.” Then finally “a large heap of stones being the northwest corner of Mansfield and the southwest corner of Foxborough, and the southeast corner of Wrentham [now Plainville], and the northeast corner of Attleborough [now North Attleboro].”