EVERY so often, I write about the Broadway mile marker that’s hiding in plain sight in the wall at Isham Park in Inwood and I point it out when Forgotten NY tours get up there. The Post Road, which followed an already established Native American trail, was established in 1673 as couriers bringing mail to different locales in the colonies traveled the trail, which was then very rough and interrupted in several locations. Couriers would mark miles by hacking cuts into trees at intervals. After nearly a century, the road was straightened and improved somewhat between New York and Boston, and from 1753-1769 heavy stone markers were set at one-mile intervals, with the surveying supervised by Benjamin Franklin. Postal rates were set by the distances between one spot and the other. Did “Poor Richard” handle this 12-mile marker? Perhaps he did.
Marker #12 was originally placed on the Post Road (later Kingsbridge Road and later, Broadway) and where 190th Street is now, but when distances were recalibrated with 0 at City Hall, the stone was moved to about 203rd Street, where it was later abandoned. Over the years the writing on the stone has weathered off, or was chiseled off by vandals.
Dipping once again into the fantastical Robert Bracklow collection from the New-York Historical Society, here’s a look at the marker stone in 1912. It appears that someone has outlined the original chiseled letters in the marker with chalk or white paint. If you look at then and now, it appears that the stones in the wall have been moved around, likely more than once since 1912 during renovations.
How did the marker wind up here? Isham Park was instituted in 1911. Before that, the park was part of the acreage of William Bradley Isham, a merchant banker who purchased 34 acres in 1867 from the family of dentist Floyd Ferris. According to NYC Parks, when Isham constructed the wall, he placed the marker there; it had been curbside but was discarded by roadworkers on Broadway. Parks does not say what year Isham did this.
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2/1/22
4 comments
Early GPS technology. Think of it that way.
Today’s Google maps shows it with overhanging plant overgrowth. It’s too bad someone very knowledgeable about it’s history can’t remove the overgrowth and restore the original inscription (using examples from
this site) with white paint.
Look at the surrounding stones looks like it all has been redone
Anyone know how many of these are still in existence? Amazing. Thanks for posting.
Sincerely, a loyal Texas reader transplanted from Brooklyn