8o SHELTON : MILESTONES. 



ville granite, are marked on opposite sides with the initials of 

 the States, " P" and " D" respectively, and on the other 

 sides with " 1892 " and the serial number, i, 2, 3, etc. There 

 are twenty-two of them on the line, which is 22.57 miles long, 

 about eight and a half miles of which, from No. 14 near the 

 Brandywine at Smith's Bridge to the stone on the bank of the 

 Delaware, are along and form the south-west boundary line, 

 as well, of our County. The stones are six and a half feet 

 long, set four feet in the ground. They are twelve inches 

 square, tapering to ten inches. Between them are smaller half 

 mile stones, projecting two feet from the ground, ten inches 

 square, tapering to eight inches, with simply the inscription 

 " ^." At each end of the line are special larger stones, 

 known as the " initial " and " terminal " stones, that carry 

 the names of the Commissioners, surveyors, etc. These 

 stones are nine and a half feet long, project five feet, are 

 eighteen inches square, and taper to twelve inches. The sur- 

 veyor for Pennsylvania was Benjamin H. Smith, the son of 

 Dr. George Smith, the historian, and himself the author of 

 the splendid "Atlas of Land Grants " in our County, of 1884. 



Milestones have much of sentiment and tradition attach- 

 ing to them, and it was an appropriate thought, indeed, that 

 the marker stone set up to indicate the place where Penn 

 landed in Chester in 1682, (on West Front Street, near Chester 

 Creek), should have been made of milestone form; for his 

 landing and creation of the Colony of Pennsylvania^ — that 

 has now become one of the three great Commonwealths of the 

 United States — was certainly one of the important milestones 

 in the history of the United States. 



