The 1767 Milestones are historic
milestone
A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway line, canal or boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks; or they can give their position on the route relative to so ...
s located along the route of the
Upper Boston Post Road
The Boston Post Road was a system of mail-delivery routes between New York City and Boston, Massachusetts that evolved into one of the first major highways in the United States.
The three major alignments were the Lower Post Road (now U.S. Ro ...
between the cities of
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
and
Springfield
Springfield may refer to:
* Springfield (toponym), the place name in general
Places and locations Australia
* Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast)
* Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council)
* Springfield, Queenslan ...
in
. The 40 surviving milestones were added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1971.
[ Massachusetts has a total of 129 surviving milestones including those along the upper Post Road.] The stones are so named, despite having been placed in many different years, because of a 1767 directive of the Province of Massachusetts Bay
The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in British America which became one of the Thirteen Colonies, thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III of England, William III and Mary II ...
that such stones be placed along major roadways. The state highway department was directed in 1960 to undertake their preservation.[ Many of them underwent a major restoration in 2018.
The first stone was erected by Paul Dudley, one of the prominent citizens of early 18th century Massachusetts, in Roxbury, which was at the time a separate community. Roxbury was located at the end of the ]Boston Neck
The Boston Neck or Roxbury Neck was an isthmus, a narrow strip of land connecting the then-peninsular city of Boston to the mainland city of Roxbury (now a neighborhood of Boston). The surrounding area was gradually filled in as the city of Bo ...
, a narrow isthmus
An isthmus (; ; ) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthmu ...
separating the mainland from the Shawmut Peninsula
Shawmut Peninsula is the promontory of land on which Boston, Massachusetts was built. The peninsula, originally a mere in area,Miller, Bradford A., "Digging up Boston: The Big Dig Builds on Centuries of Geological Engineering", GeoTimes, Octobe ...
, where Boston was located. Travelers going by land from Boston to other areas had to travel over the neck and through Roxbury to reach their destinations. The Roxbury junction where Dudley placed the first stone was where several routes branched, heading south and west across New England.
Dudley erected several stones along the road from Boston to Cambridge which wound its way from Beacon Hill along what is now Washington Street through the Dudley Square area to what is now Huntington Avenue, then along Harvard Street through Brookline Village, Coolidge Corner
Coolidge Corner is a neighborhood of Brookline, Massachusetts, centered on the intersection of Beacon Street and Harvard Street. The neighborhood takes its name from the Coolidge & Brother general store that opened in 1857 at that intersecti ...
, and Allston crossing into Cambridge at the Great Bridge, where modern JFK Street in Cambridge becomes North Harvard Street in Allston. The stones that Dudley erected have the initial PD on them, usually at the bottom of the stone. The most chatty of these milestones (not part of this collection), is inscribed P Dudley rather than PD, and is located on the corner of Centre and South Streets in Jamaica Plain
Jamaica Plain is a neighborhood of in the City of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Settled by Puritans seeking farmland to the south, it was originally part of the former Town of Roxbury, now also a part of the City of Boston. The commun ...
.
The stones listed for miles 23 through 29 in Wayland and Sudbury are actually guideposts rather than milestones, and do not list any mileage. They were erected at road intersections rather than at the mile marks. The stones are quarried granite posts with plug & feather tool marks and post-date 1800.
See also
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References
{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Suffolk County, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Middlesex County, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Worcester County, Massachusetts
Road transportation buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places
Individual signs on the National Register of Historic Places
Individual signs in the United States
Transportation buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts