GIS and Woodbury's Colonial Milestones

If you've been traveling recently for holiday gatherings, school or work commitments, or just recreation, perhaps you've been grateful for GPS navigation; perhaps you've been frustrated with poorly marked and poorly maintained roads. Can you envision traveling between the scattered settlements of colonial America in the 1700's? Take a look at what Sarah Kemble Knight wrote of her journey from Boston to New York, published as The Journal of Madam Knight (copies available in many digital archives, including ColonialSense - http://www.colonialsense.com/Regional_History/Journals/Journal_of_Madam_Knight.php)

Sarah Kemble Knight later moved to New London, Connecticut, where she died in 1727 and is buried at Ye Antientist Burial Place. According to the Dictionary of American Biography (1936), in Boston, she opened "a writing-school that Benjamin Franklin is said to have attended, although he does not mention her in his Autobiography."  Biography in Context database, Gale-Cengage. Later, Benjamin Franklin served as Postmaster for the British colonies, then as Postmaster for the newly formed United States.  

Moll's Map (1729) describes looping mail routes from New York and Boston meeting in Seabrook [Saybrook] to exchange the Western and Eastern mail bags, and mentions stops in New London and Stonington. In Franklin's "Tables of Port", Connecticut's Post-Offices were: New London, Guilford, New Haven, Stratford, Norwalk, and Stanford [sic.], with a spur route from New Haven to Hartford via Middletown. Postal rates were based on mileage between Post-Offices. To calculate postal rates more accurately, he urged states to erect milestones along the postal routes. He made inspection tours of the postal routes and used the system to extend the circulation of his Poor Richard's Almanack, his brother's New England Courant, and other publications. Personal correspondence and the social network formed by the routes became a channel for organizing the colonists frustrated by oppressive policies of the English government.


Along roads in Woodbury, Connecticut, leading to Litchfield (the county seat), some ancient milestones are marked with plaques denoting these as "Benjamin Franklin Milestones." Papers of the Old Woodbury Historical Society, photographs, and periodical clippings about the milestones are on file at the Woodbury Public Library.

Benjamin Franklin Milestones 1976

The milestones are rough-cut stone, chiseled with the letter "L" (representing Litchfield), Roman numerals (representing the distance from Litchfield) and the letter "M" (miles). Some are broken, some submerged in the surrounding earth, and some made illegible by weathering. Two in the series are in town of Bethlehem.

Henry F. Sage, "Map Showing Old Road" Bethlehem - North Woodbury (1932)

With the help of those records, together with archival materials at the Connecticut Historical Society, an interview with Charles Bartlett (author and former Woodbury Selectman) and a tip from another knowledgeable local, I found nearly all of the milestones, from VIII to XVII, accessible along the public roads.

Ye Myle Stones of Connecticut, by Henry F. Sage (1922-1932)

Although I've been using GoogleMaps and GoogleEarth for years, I've just begun to delve into the world of GIS (Geographical Information Systems): a powerful blend of GPS, online mapping tools, internet resources, and a world (literally) of data. The map then becomes a way to tell a story, to explore connections between us, our history, our environment, and our evolution as a culture. Please join me in these blogposts, linked to GoogleEarth map pins, as I explore the history, technology, and preservation of these stones. Below are some resources on Franklin, Knight, and the early postal system.

Woodbury Milestones

Sources and Further Research

Benjamin Franklin and the Postal System

Adelman, Joseph. “A Constitutional Conveyance of Intelligence, Public and Private”: The Post Office, the Business of Printing, and the American Revolution. Business History Conference, 2010.

Franklin, B[enjamin], and J. Foxcroft. Tables of the Port of All Single Letters Carried by Post in the Northern District of North America, as Established by Act of Parliament, Passed in the Fifth Year of the Reign of His Majesty King George the Third, Entitled, An Act to Alter Certain Rates of Postage, and to Amend, Explain, and Enlarge Several Provisions in An Act Made in the Ninth Year of the Reign of Queen Anne, and in Other Acts Relating to the Revenue of the Post-Office. Printed by James Parker, [1765?]

Isaacson, Walter. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2004.

John, Richard R. Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995

Knight, Sarah Kemble. The Journal of Madam Knight. Boston: D.R. Godine, 1971

Moll, H[erman]. New England, New York, New Jersey and Pensilvania [sic], 1729? Accessed 27 November 2013. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1729_Moll_Map_of_New_York,_New_England,_and_Pennsylvania_%28First_Postal_Map_of_New_England%29_-_Geographicus_-_NewEnglandNewYork-moll-1729.jpg

Morgan, Edmund S. Benjamin Franklin. New Haven: Yale University Pr., 2002.

Parker, James. Letters 20 Dec. 1765, 11 Jan. 1766, 24 Dec. 1767. In Labaree, Leonard W., and Whitfield J. Bell, Jr., eds. The Papers of Benjamin Franklin. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1969.