The Milestones

Peter F. Ewer (1800–55) was responsible for placing the milestones on the road to ’Sconset in 1824. He was particularly interested in timing his speedy horse on the trip from ’Sconset to town, and needed mileage markers to help him do so. Since most trips to ’Sconset in the 1820s took the better part of a day, Mr. Ewer’s accomplishment was something to note, and was recorded in the Inquirer of January 26, 1824. He must have marked his progress by milestones already in place. As the ’Sconset road changed courses in the nineteenth century, the milestones were moved several times. There is a tradition in the Ewer family that Peter F. Ewer’s descendants are expected to keep the milestones painted white, “even down to the fourteenth generation.” Ewer would later be well known for other accomplishments, most notably the invention of the camels, those oddly named flotation devices that lifted whaleships over the shallow entrance to the harbor. A handsome man, his portrait — after conservation removed later paint — reveals a diamond-shaped tattoo between his eyes.

A digital exhibition by the Nantucket Historical Association