The New International Encyclopædia/Milton (Massachusetts)

MILTON. A town, including the villages of Blue Hill, East Milton, Lower Mills, and Mattapan, in Norfolk County, Mass., seven miles south of Boston; on the Neponset River and on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (Map: Massachusetts, E 3). It is an attractive residential suburb of Boston, and has a public library, Milton Academy, Leopold Morse Home, and the Milton Convalescent Home. The crest of the highest hill of the Blue Hills is the site of an observatory and a station of the United States Meteorological Bureau. A fine view is afforded. The town has a trade in garden stuff and ice, and there are granite quarries, paper mills, chocolate and cracker factories, rubber cement works, etc. The government is administered by town meetings. Population, in 1890, 4278; in 1909, 6578. Settled in 1637, Milton was a part of Dorchester until, in 1662, it was incorporated as a separate township. It was the home for many years of Jonathan Belcher, a colonial Governor of both Massachusetts and New Jersey, and of Thomas Hutchinson, the historian and colonial Governor of Massachusetts. Consult Teele (editor), History of Milton, Mass. (Milton, 1887).