Railway Village Historic District

The Railway Historic District is a 30 acre district in East Milton that includes Adams Street from its intersection with Mechanic and Church Streets in the west, and Washington Street in the east; it extends south to include Pierce Street and a section of Mechanic Street and north to include Granite Place, Bates Road, Brackett and Eaton Streets, and sections of Belcher Circle, Washington and Bunton Streets and Church Place.

The Railway Village Historic District takes its name from the Granite Railway, a 3 ½ mile railroad that was laid out in 1826 by Gridley Bryant connecting the West Quincy granite quarries and the Neponset River via Adams Street and Granite Avenue in East Milton. This was the first commercial railroad in the United States and was developed to convey granite to the nearest tidewater where the granite blocks were placed on barges and towed to Charlestown for use in the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument. The granite industry, which attracted a large workforce, developed a distinct neighborhood in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that became known as East Milton; the railroad line was later used by Nathan Carruth’s Old Colony Railroad, which was founded in 1844 and connected Boston and South Shore towns.

An interesting aspect of the Railway Village Historic District is the large amount of granite that was used for building foundations, walls drive posts and buildings, such as the extant Superintendent’s House on Adams Street and the now demolished Blue Bell Tavern.

 

Notable houses and buildings: