HistoricSiteMarkers
Colonial AmericaEarly Republic

Quincy Milestone — Boston & Plymouth

Quincy, Norfolk County, Massachusetts

Marker Inscription

Boston 6 M|Plymouth 28 Miles|Over|South Boston Bridge|to Boston 5 Miles

The Story

This is an old stone milestone — one of the carved guideposts that once lined the post roads radiating out of Boston, telling travelers on horseback and in stagecoaches exactly how far they had to go. Reading the distances to Boston and all the way south to Plymouth, and pointing the way over the South Boston Bridge, it belongs to the era when New England's roads were first being measured and marked, a practice famously encouraged in the 1700s to regularize colonial travel and mail. Standing in Quincy, it marked a stretch of the vital route linking Boston with the Old Colony towns to the south.

Why it matters

Humble milestones like this one were America's first road signs, physical evidence of how a young country stitched its towns together by measured, reliable travel long before highways or gas stations.

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