78 SHELTON : 



Court ordered that Grand Jury doe meet on the 22nd instance at Thomas 

 Nossiter's, then to consider the premises." 



This was around Eighth month 17th, 1683. 



The road was opened in 1684 and the theor\' is that the 

 milestones were set up later, by individuals by common agree- 

 ment, which would explain the diversity of size and shape 

 and markings, and the fact of No. 5 stone with the date 1705 

 and Nossiter's initials on it, either cut by himself or by some 

 one else later, in recognition of his having had much to do 

 with the making of the road. 



Mrs. Isaac L. Miller has stated that both Edgar T. Miller 

 and Miss Sharpless said the date should read " 1795," and 

 that the letters apply to a Thomas Nasson or Nassome, who 

 had a farm there. There is nothing to bear this out, and 

 there is no suggestion of a tail to the cipher, indicating that 

 it was a "9," and Mr. Miller told me that the date was 1705. 



Mr. F. P. Powers thinks that the date is 1767 and that 

 the tail was above, and that it was broken off, leaving only 

 the cipher portion. The upper corner of the stone has been 

 broken above, but in fixedly looking at the stone, before 

 the recutting, I could not see any evidence of a "6." Mr. 

 Powers believes in general that milestones started around 1760, 

 and he has no theory as to the " T. N." initials. But in a 

 paper of great interest on milestones before the City History 

 Society of Philadelphia, he speaks of several around Boston, 

 that date in the 1730's. 



So the net fact is, that no one knows whether the date of 

 the stone is 1705, 1765 or 1795. It is in any event a very old 

 one and very interesting, and if the 1705 theory is correct, the 

 County possess in that little, old stone, fifteen inches wide, 

 three inches thick and sticking out of the ground but eighteen 

 inches, the oldest milestone of any place and any sort that I 

 have heard of in the United States. The Nossiter theory is 

 as plausible as any, and in fact has more to bear it out than 

 any other ; why not enjoy that as long as no one can show 

 anything more definitel}^ to the contrary ? 



