Biweekly Newsletter June 22, 2024

​Request for Information
The Society is looking for memories of Johanna McFadden, a longtime principal at the former North Easton Grammar School. Please send any reminiscences to my email or the Society's  [email protected].
Thank you in advance.
 
Easton’s Boundaries
Before there were walls there were boundary markers, only sometimes made of something as permanent as stone. William L. Chaffin in his 1886 History of Easton mentions “a little piles of stones” being used to show an early boundary, and in 1713 when there was a boundary dispute over what should be the north line of the Taunton North-Purchase, the boundary was marked by a “heap of stones on a great rock”.
Today Easton has 9 known boundary stones indicating its original borders with 8 towns. This is according to an 1899 survey book given to the Easton Historical Society in May of 2018 by a man called William Thomas. The towns are Stoughton, Sharon, Raynham, Brockton, West Bridgewater, Mansfield, Taunton, and Norton. 
Easton, whose very oldest distances and directions were sometimes described in increments of ‘paces’ taken, now has documented markers. Today the latitude and longitude of each marker is known. According to Joe Pelletier of the Enterprise News “The book, commissioned by the state’s topographical survey commission, was (in a word or two) exhaustively comprehensive.” The book also contains the history of land purchases and legislation that set the borders. The survey was done in 1899 with the technology of that time. The impetus for the survey was that Bay Road had not been well maintained by the Town of Easton and the state required that it be improved.

Book Cover

Included in the book, called Boundary Lines of Easton, are 9 photographs showing the 9 markers, most of which are granite. Local historians thought these were out there but were not exactly sure where, although a few had inadvertently been stumbled upon. One of the markers is on Bay Road where Easton, Stoughton and Sharon meet. The letters S, E, and S have been carved onto the sides of the marker. It is not far from where Mountain Road meets Bay Road. Another is on private property, one is in the Hockomock Swamp, one is in an industrial park.

Photos of markers at the time of 1899 survey.

Anne Wooster Drury
[email protected]
 
Links for more information:
"History of Easton" by William Chaffin (1975 reprint of the original 1886 addition for sale)

Marking History: In Easton, a century-old gift reveals location of original town border markers (Enterprise News article)

​1899 Atlas of the boundaries of the town of Easton, Bristol County (Source: Digital Commonwealth)