Coast Path

United States Migration  Trails and Roads  Massachusetts  Coast Path

Did an ancestor travel the Coast Path? Learn about this settler migration route, its transportation history, and find related genealogy sources.

The Coast Path was a migration route between Plymouth and Boston near the shore of Massachusetts.

Background History
The Pilgrims from England and the Netherlands founded Plymouth in 1620. The Puritans from England founded Boston in 1630. The Coast Path was the earliest overland route between the two.

The Coast Path probably pre-dated both colonies as part of a much longer American Indian trail with extensions as far north as Maine and New Brunswick (see Kennebunk Road) where the English and other Europeans dried cod from the Grand Banks for markets in Europe by the early 1500s.

Route
The Coast Path passed northwest to southeast through Suffolk, Norfolk, and Plymouth counties:

Suffolk County


 * Boston
 * Dorchester

Norfolk County


 * Milton
 * Quincy
 * Braintree
 * Weymouth
 * Cohasset (east of Hingham)

Plymouth County


 * Hingham
 * Scituate
 * Marshfield
 * Duxbury
 * Kingston
 * Plymouth

Connecting Routes Over time the Coast Path connected with half a dozen new migration routes out of the Boston end of the Coast Path:


 * Bay Road connects Boston (Massachusetts Bay) to New Bedford (Buzzards Bay).
 * Kennebunk Road links Boston along the New England coast to Augusta, Maine.
 * King's Highway also known as the Boston Post Road goes from Boston, Massachusetts to New York City, and south to Charleston, South Carolina with extensions on each end. In Massachusetts and Connecticut there were at least three competing routes for the Boston Post Road. Parts were laid out 1650 to 1735; its length remained in heavy use through 1783, and some parts are used to this day.
 * Mohawk or Iroquois Trail This trail was established in 1722 from Albany to Utica to Rome to Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario. The Boston to Albany side of that route probably preceded the Albany to Oswego route by many years.
 * Old Connecticut Path a pre-historic Indian path from Boston, Massachusetts to the Connecticut River Valley at Springfield, Massachusetts and south to Hartford, Connecticut.
 * Old Roebuck Road goes from Boston to Providence, Rhode Island (Narragansett Bay).

Settlers and Records
The pathway from from Plymouth to Boston near the Atlantic Ocean shore was used by European settlers and traders by 1630, if not earlier. A few scattered settlers from Plymouth may have settled along the route in the decade following 1621. More concentrated European settlements along the route began after Boston was settled about 1630. There are few records mentioning specific Coast Path travelers. But anyone who settled near the Coast Path during the 1600s likely used the Coast Path or the ocean to reach their new home, or to reach markets in Boston and Plymouth. For records of the earliest settlers (and Coast Path travelers), see sources such as:

The Mayflower

The Great Migration