Durham Road Milestone: One Mile to Newtown
Near Trenton, Pennsylvania
Standing near the road here is one of the oldest distance markers in Pennsylvania. Bearing the inscription one mile to Newtown, this milestone is believed to have been set before seventeen forty-one. It survives as one of the few such markers still in place along the old Durham Road, a route connecting Bristol on the Delaware River to Durham Furnace to the north.
Newtown, which the stone points toward, served as the county seat of Bucks County from seventeen twenty-six to eighteen thirteen. Milestones like this one were practical tools: they told travelers how far they had come and how far remained. Most were lost to road improvements over the centuries.
The survival of this one is a small accident of history, a colonial measuring stick still standing where it was set nearly three hundred years ago.
