Webb Memorial State Park

Webb Memorial State Park is a must-visit mainland spot for hiking and picnicking.

NPS Photo

Quick Facts

Location:

Weymouth, Massachusetts

Significance:

Site of Grape Island Alarm, 1775

MANAGED BY:

Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation

Amenities

8 listed

Grill, Parking - Auto, Picnic Shelter/Pavilion, Picnic Table, Restroom, Restroom - Accessible, Toilet - Flush, Water - Drinking/Potable

A peninsula that extends into Hingham Bay, Webb Memorial State Park offers visitors beautiful scenes of the Harbor, trails to enjoy, and picnic areas to gather.

The peninsula provided an abundance of natural resources for original local Indigenous communities in the area. European occupation of the peninsula resulted in most of the area being converted into agricultural farmland.

This peninsula played a role in the 1775 skirmish known as the Battle of Grape Island. During the Siege of Boston, British forces searched for resources in the islands, including Grape Island. From this location, townspeople of Weymouth and the local militia saw British soldiers taking hay from Grape Island on May 21, 1775. Sounding the alarm, local colonial forces initially fired upon the British before taking boats to the island and driving the British away.¹ Abigail Adams, living in the area, recalled the event to her husband, John Adams: 

You inquire of me who were at the engagement at Grape Island. I may say with truth all of Weymouth, Braintree, Hingham, who were able to bear arms, and hundreds from other towns within twenty, thirty, and forty miles of Weymouth. Both your brothers were there; your younger brother, with his company, who gained honor by their good order that day. He was one of the first to venture on board a schooner, to land upon the island.²

A memorial in Webb Memorial State Park commemorates this event, reading:

Grape Island Alarm: Sunday May 21, 1775
From this Site Weymouth militiamen repulsed an attempt by the British to secure supplies from Grape Island for General Howe’s Beleaguered Army in Boston

The Bradley family owned most of the peninsula during the 1800s. In 1872, they converted a portion of their land into a manufacturing plant for the Bradley Fertilizer Company.³

In the mid-1950s, the US Army temporarily installed NIKE-Ajax missiles at the tip of the peninsula.⁴ The military then transferred land ownership to the State of Massachusetts in 1977. Webb Memorial State Park opened in 1980, named after former Weymouth police captain and selectman William K. Webb.⁵

Learn More...

Island Facts: Webb Memorial State Park - Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

---

Footnotes

1. Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Boston Harbor Islands National & State Park, Volume 1: Historical Overview (Boston: National Park Service, 2017), 30, 76; Snow, The Islands of Boston Harbor, 161; Richard Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston (Boston: C. C. Little and J. Borwn, 1851), 108.
2. Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston, 108-109.
3. "Sales of Houses and Lands," Boston Globe, November 08, 1872; "Park opens – signs of toxic waste closed it," Boston Globe, May 29 1980; William Pepe, "Life in Wymouth’s Bradley Village during the '20s and '30s," Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA), November 13, 2012. https://www.patriotledger.com/story/lifestyle/boomers/2012/11/14/william-pepe-life-in-weymouth/32053345007/
4. Cultural Landscape Report: Boston Harbor Islands National & State Park, 100.
5. "Webb Memorial State Park," North and South Rivers Watershed Association, accessed February 14, 2022, https://www.nsrwa.org/listing/webb-memorial-state-park/; "Park opens – signs of toxic waste closed it," Boston Globe, May 29 1980.