Milton is a town just south of Boston, still governed the old fashioned way by a traditional town meeting. The community is six miles south of Boston. The town consists of 13 square miles between the Blue Hills and Neponset River with 26,000 people.
It’s a delightful woodsy down, readily accessible to Boston proper with a first rate public school system as well as top notch Milton Academy. Milton was listed by Money Magazine in 2009 as one of the top five places to live in the United States.
Milton was first settled by the Neponset Indians for which the boundary river is named. The Neponset River’s fall line is at Lower mills, which became the site of a grist mill in 1634. The first English homes were built on the Milton side of the river in 1640 when the land was considered to be part of Dorchester. In 1662 the settlement had grown to the point where a separate town was established and named Milton after Milton Abbey in Dorset England.
In 1764 the Walter Baker Chocolate factory was established in the old grist mill at Lower Mills. On into the 1960s, the smell of chocolate wafted across the river into Boston. Today the renovated red brick factory buildings are riverside apartments with rents for studios starting at $1200 a month.
Given Milton’s proximity to Boston and hydro power from the falls, the area was originally developed as an industrial site with iron slitting mill, paper and sawmills. The town was also the location of the first piano factory in the United States.
The cracker was invented in Milton at the G.H. Bent Factory in 1801. Bent was trying to make dried biscuits that wouldn’t deteriorate during long sea voyages. The name came from the crackling sound made during baking.
When trolley lines reached Milton, the town grew into a streetcar suburb. It’s now served by a light rail extension of the Red line out of Ashmont station in Dorchester with four stops: Milton, Central Avenue, Valley Road, and Capen Street. The Southeast Expressway I-93 also runs through town.
The town has a lot of green open space. A favorite is Governor Hutchinson’s Field, atop Milton Hill, with an expansive vista of the Neponset River with the Boston skyline on the horizon.
The Blue Hills Reservation is public parkland in the southern part of Milton that includes ponds for swimming, trails for hiking, and one hill, Great Blue that is used for local skiing. At 635 feet it’s the highest point within 10 miles of the coast south of Maine, making it prime real estate for weather observation and broadcast transmission towers. In fact, PBS powerhouse WGBH, got its call letters from Great Blue Hill.
The Neponset River Greenway is a cycling path that connects Milton with Boston Harbor.
The 41st President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush, was born at 173 Adams Street on Milton Hill on June 12, 1924. Adams Street is named for the other father and son presidents, John Adams and John Quincy Adams who lived just a few miles away in Quincy. The Bush birthplace is privately owned and not open to the public.
Architect Buckminster Fuller, who popularized the geodesic dome, was born in Milton in 1895.
In Milton, the median age is 39. The median household income is $91,000. The town is 83% White, 10% Black 4% Asian 3% Latino. 43% of the population is of Irish origin, the highest percentage of Irish in any town in the US. 52% of the residents 25 years and older have a four year degree.
Milton is very safe. In the last decade there have been only four murders. Less than 3% of Milton residents live below the poverty level
In 1999, 2003 and 2004, hundreds of new apartments were constructed in town. Most of the apartments are available on the northern part of town close to the Neponset River or in East Milton Square. Homes can be rented throughout the town. One bedroom apartments begin at $1500 a month. There is no rent control.
