Edicott Rock Monument c. 1905

Endicott Rock may be the oldest public monument in New England. The name of John Endicott, Governor of Massachusetts Bay, and the initials of Edward Johnson and Simon Willard, Commissioners of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and of John Sherman and Jonathan Ince, Suveyors, were inscribed on the rock on August 1, 1652. The rock marked the assumed headwaters of the Merrimack River. Under the original Bay Charter of 1629, the northern boundary of the colony was fixed as a line three miles north of the Merrimack. Endicott Rock is unstaffed and is open to the public year-round at no charge.