Bad Ends · DETOUR · South End
A 1911 paper put Boston's Quaker gallows out here on the Neck, using a judge's diary and a 1722 map.
Out here on Washington Street, Boston was once a thin neck of land with one road and a gate across it. A 1911 paper for the Bostonian Society argued the colony's gallows stood just outside that gate, and that Mary Dyer and the other hanged Quakers died out here, not on the Common. Its evidence: a judge's diary and a 1722 map. Nothing marks it. Look north.
This is a detour on Bad Ends.
The plate
The Other Gallows
Collected on site
Washington Street at East Berkeley Street, South End
Directions
1
A post inside the old fortification read 'One mile out from the Town-house.' The gallows stood just past it.
More footnotes on the story card, in the app.
In these collections: Crime Scenes
Sources (5)
- Where Were the Quakers Hanged?Michael J. Canavan, Proceedings of the Bostonian Society (annual meeting 1911) · 1911
- Mary DyerWikipedia (lead only; note 70 cites Canavan 1911, pp. 37-49) · accessed 2026-10-10
- Dover Street Station OpensWhen and Where in Boston
- Dover station (MBTA)Wikipedia · accessed 2026-10-11
- MBTA v3 API: SL5 (route 749) stops, direction 0MBTA · checked 2026-10-11