Mile XIII NH Marker

The stone marker set in front of the Shed behind the Hitchcock-Phillips House looks a bit like a gravestone. However, its markings, “XIII NH” are unlike any you will see in Hillside Cemetery, or even our own side yard. That is because it is not a gravestone, but a Colonial Mile Marker. In 1767, the Colonial General Court enacted a law requiring orderly road markings. This law ordered “that milestones, at least two feet high, be set up by the Selectmen of the towns near the side of the common traveling roads and on the Post roads in every County marking the distance to the County town.” The “County town” was later revised to reference the “County Court House.” While different types of stone were used, brownstone became the most common. By custom, the stones were installed on the right-hand side of the road leading to the County Court House. A 1951 essay reports that in the 1930s, the line of stones to New Haven “seems to end with stone No. 17, about one mile south of the trolley junction at Milldale.”

The Mile 13 marker’s original location was across the street from Cheshire High School. It had been moved from that location to a garden on Cornwall Ave., before it was donated to the Society.

“Detail from a map of Connecticut and Rhode Island, with Long Island Sound, 1776
- University of Connecticut Libraries’, Map and Geographic Information Center (MAGIC)”