Old Bay Road

This two-mile stretch of Old Bay Road in Norton, Massachusetts, runs from the Easton town line to the Taunton town line and continues a section in Easton that was already listed. The road is about a rod and a half wide, with a tar surface, gentle curves and stone walls along parts of its length. It follows Mulberry Meadow Brook and skirts the eastern shore of Winnecunnet Pond. Eighteenth-century maps show it in its present location, which is why it is described as one of the oldest roads in New England still in its original place. It began as an Indian trail and became a path to the Bay Colony around Boston, then a pack horse route, post road and stage road. It lies within the 1640 Taunton purchase. Two original milestones, dated 1773 and 1782, survive, and Minute Men marched along it in 1775. Two early cemeteries, one the oldest in Norton, overlook the pond.