Endicott Rock, Weirs Beach, NH

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.

The commissioners, surveyors and two Native American guides, Pontauhum and Ponbakin, reached what is now Franklin, where the river separated into two branches. The party went toward the east on the Winnipesaukee River to the outlet of Lake Winnipesaukee, referring to it as "Aquedahian."

The Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Masonian Proprietors of New Hampshire (and their successors) struggled for control of territory. The boundary was linked with, and a reflection of, the Puritan-Stuart political antagonisms in the mother country of England. The issue was not resolved until an English court decision of 1740, which set the northern boundary of Massachusetts west of the Merrimack River as a line directly west from Dracut Falls.

This outlet is now known as the Weirs, named after prehistoric fish weirs the Aquadoctan Indian inhabitants used to catch salmon. (Oh Ranger.com)