A parting stone is a monument, usually of stone, to either:
# Provide direction at a
fork in the road—a ''parting'' of the way, or
# Commemorate a final parting, as from a loved one.
Directions
alt=Roxbury Parting Stone of 1744, upright=.7, The 1744 Roxbury Parting Stone, fitted here with an iron stake from which a lantern could be hung
A directing parting stone shows where each leg of a road fork leads.
The earliest
legislation pertaining to guide-posts was on February 28, 1795. In it, the
selectmen were required to erect guide-posts at the corners and angles of all roads in their towns and districts, Before that time, some individuals had set up roadside stones marking the distance or direction to some important town.
Numerous such stones were set by
Paul Dudley, Chief-Justice of Massachusetts, as they bear his name or initials. It was not uncommon for well-to-do eighteenth century men to place
milestone
A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway, railway line, canal or border, boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks; or they can give their position on the rou ...
s by the roadside along main thoroughfares for the convenience of travelers.
One well known example of a Dudley stone is the
Roxbury Roxbury may refer to:
Places
;Canada
* Roxbury, Nova Scotia
* Roxbury, Prince Edward Island
;United States
* Roxbury, Connecticut
* Roxbury, Kansas
* Roxbury, Maine
* Roxbury, Boston, a municipality that was later integrated into the city of Bosto ...
Parting Stone, known locally as simply the Parting Stone.
It is located near the Norfolk House, at the corner of Centre and Roxbury Streets, on
Eliot Square.
On its front or easterly face is inscribed , with the directions on the south and north faces of and respectively.
Memorials
A memorial parting stone may be erected, for example, at the departure point of a loved one's final journey.
An example can be found in England's
Lake District at
Grisedale Tarn
Grisedale Tarn is a tarn in the Lake District of England between Fairfield and Dollywagon Pike.
It is the legendary resting place of the crown of the kingdom of Cumbria, after the crown was conveyed there in 945 by soldiers of the last king, ...
.
Known as the Brothers Parting Stone, it marks the place at which
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798).
Wordsworth's '' ...
last saw his brother John.
Hardwicke Rawnsley
Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley (29 September 1851 – 28 May 1920) was an Anglican priest, poet, local politician and conservationist. He became nationally and internationally known as one of the three founders of the National Trust for Places of H ...
erected a stone in 1882 with the inscription:
:Here did we stop; and here looked round
:While each into himself descends,
:For that last thought of parting Friends
:That is not to be found.
:Brother and friend, if verse of mine
:Have power to make thy virtues known,
:Here let a monumental Stone
:Stand–sacred as a Shrine
[
''A Lake District Miscellany'',
by Tom Holman
© 2007 Tom Holma]
See also
*
Boundary marker
A boundary marker, border marker, boundary stone, or border stone is a robust physical marker that identifies the start of a land boundary or the change in a boundary, especially a change in direction of a boundary. There are several other t ...
*
Ghost bike
A ghost bike (also referred to as a ghostcycle or WhiteCycle) is a bicycle roadside memorial, placed where a cyclist has been killed or severely injured, usually by the driver of a motor vehicle.
Apart from being a memorial, it is usually inte ...
*
Roadside memorial
Roxbury Parting Stone at WikiMedia Commons
References
{{reflist
Street furniture
Types of monuments and memorials
Road transport
