Jim Murphy's Web Page

Walking Massachusetts

For over fifteen years, I have been systematically walking throughout Massachusetts.  Each walk begins at a place that I have previously reached, usually either an end point or a turning point.

Gradually, I have radiated out from my home base in Boston to cover an area more or less bounded by the Cape Cod Canal, New Bedford, Providence, Worcester, Fitchburg, Nashua, and Newburyport.  As this list shows, I have actually crossed two state lines; but the Rhode Island and New Hampshire territory thus far covered is still small enough, and the prospects for getting to Maine, Connecticut and Vermont still so remote, that "Walking Massachusetts" seems a more appropriate title than "Walking New England".

Each month I used to devote one or more days to this project; recently, however, I have had to very much slow down the pace of collecting so that I can do more work on writing and posting these narratives. When I walk, I like to do six to eight hours, but geographical and transportation considerations have varied that time length from as little as four to as long as fifteen hours. Though it is not a "rule", I use public transportation, a practice that greatly affects the territorial advance.

I am a strong advocate of walking for one's health. Vigorous walking suffices to keep one fit physically. Though I respect joggers and marathoners, my motto is "Walk, don't run".

Even more do I advocate walking from the point of view of mental health.  There is no better way to leave one's troubles than to go off onto the "open road".  For me, making each walk different and being able to find something of interest in each new sight adds to this benefit.

In addition, walking serves me as hobby, combining a kind of tourism and a form of collecting.  Each such walk allows me to "collect" one or more new localities. Though I now capture any kind of place name that I can, frequently getting these from maps rather than signage, I am particularly pleased when I take in a new municipality. My totals for these now stand as follows:
 
 

Massachusetts
197
(56%)

New Hampshire
9
(4%)

Rhode Island
9
(23%)

 

TOTAL
215

 

Although Massachusetts counties for the most part now have onl7 archaic significance, I can claim to have done all municipalities in the following: Bristol County, Essex County, Middlesex County, Norfolk County, Plymouth County, and Suffolk County. 

I also "collect" state and national routes.  I have completely traversed the following:

1A      All Massachusetts segments
  4       Lexington to Chelmsford
22       Beverly to Essex
27       Kingston to Chelmsford
30       Boston to Grafton
37       Quincy to Brockton
38       Somerville MA to Salem NH
53       Quincy to Kingston
60       Revere to Waltham
99       Everett to Saugus
107     Revere to Salem
114     Marblehead to Lawrence
121     Wrentham MA to Cumberland RI
127     Beverly to Gloucester
145     Boston to Revere
203     Boston
228     Rockland to Hull
286     Seabrook NH to Salisbury MA

 

I have followed U.S. 1 from Salisbury to Providence, U.S. 6 from Fall River to Wareham, and U.S. 20 from Boston to Oxford.

In other campaigns, I have done the Atlantic coast from Gloucester to Scituate.  I am also following the course of rivers, the Charles and Neponset being in progress.

In respect to compass points, my outer limits thus far are as follows:

On this page, I am tracing my progress with an account of each of these walks completed since the creation of this page inspired me to start taking notes.  My first edition contained a very simple account of a walk that I had done around that time, based on what I could remember of my course and containing as many links as I could find on the (then much "smaller") Internet.  It then occurred to take notes as I walk, to find more sources for links, and to incorporate additional historical and geographical material. So just as my walking area has grown, so have my reports! Indeed, the level of detail in the note keeping progressively advanced until it reached the level (the narratives thus far posted have not quite reached this yet) whereby I will collect as much data as I can and still be walking.

Isn't the Internet wonderful?  Before, you had to hold a party or dinner to get your friends to look at your slides, movies, or whatever.  Now you can instantaneously and continually bore everyone you know, and millions of innocent people throughout the world, with anything you can think of.

Despite an obstinate feeling that people should read each account in its entirety in chronological order, I have, in the interest of mercy to those with slower connections and in recognition that I myself hate Web pages that scroll to infinity, now put each walk on a separate page. I will even admit that first time visitors might want to start at the end, since each narrative is generally better than its predecessors and also because they will find fewer expired links. However, I try not to be repetitious, and there is sequential information throughout these accounts; so, officially, I still recommend doing them in order.

These reports for June 1997 walks were posted in that year:

The complete reader will find a progression in details and in links in the above; and this has, as noted, generally continued. As a result, I am getting quite far behind in reporting what I have accomplished. Indeed, it is taking me about six months or longer to complete each such narrative so that I am falling further and further behind.

Isn't there some foundation willing to support these contributions to geography, history and literature? Or where is John Beresford Tipton these days? If only he would send me that million dollars, I could quit working and get this page up to date. (Actually a grant for a few million dollars would allow for even more improvements, but I don't want to seem greedy.)

At any rate, here are the walks for July 1997:

For August 1997, I have now posted these these three, the last taking until 2002 to finish:

Rain and other factors limited me to one walk in September 1997, posted in this edition of the web page viz.:

I also did the Jimmy Fund Marathon Walk in that month, as I regularly did for over a decade. Inasmuch as there is already much information on this course over the Boston Marathon route already on the Internet and since I am so far behind in my regular narrative contributions to knowledge, I have given up the idea writing this and subsequent versions of that charitable endeavor.

There were three October 1997 walks, one now posted, viz.:

In November 1997, I did these two walks:

December 1997 had two also, viz.:

Bad weather (or, more accurately, often false forecasts of bad weather) limited me to one walk in January 1998, namely:

In February 1998, I put in these three walks:

For March 1998, there were the following two walks:

Another two walks were done in April 1998, namely:

May 1998 saw these two walks:

The report for June 1998 yields the following two walks:

There were two walks in July 1998, namely:

In August 1998 I achieved three more, viz.:

In September, I did the Jimmy Fund 1998 walk.  Bad weather, an allergy, and a cold, as well as work conditions, plus an injury sustained while walking locally, then limited my progress until December. For that month there were again three to be narrated, as follows:

The year 1999 started poorly, with cold weather, a cold of mine, inclement conditions, and a fortunately temporary back injury all keeping me from any but local walks during January and February and permitting only one expedition in March, namely:

Technical and weather problems restricted me in April 1999 to just one walk also, viz.:

In May 1999 I did my tenth Walk for Hunger (too mundane for these narrations).  I also made up a rule that I would not start any more of these walks until the notes from the preceding one were written up, doing only "local" (and, later, some "regional") walking in the meantime.  Even so, that month saw the following two additional trips:

In June bad weather on days that I could take off again meant no walks.  I did do the AIDS Walk (also my tenth of these "trivial" 10 kilometer fund raisers).  And in July I accomplished these two journeys:

In between these last (on July 10), Cathy, my companion of twelve years died, making my program an exercise in grief therapy in addition to the other motives cited above.  Ironically, my walking hobby began in earnest during a summer that Cathy was away in Australia, loneliness leading me to take further and further trips and eventually to develop a routine and a pattern, expanding and systemizing what had been before only an occasional and limited pastime.   Although at first somewhat "jealous" of my activity, Cathy subsequently became a fervid supporter of this part of my life, too. This page is therefore dedicated to her memory.

Without the messages that I used to leave for Cathy during my walks and the reports that I would provide to her each evening, much of the fun went out of these endeavors. But, if only for sake of human knowledge, I am sure that I will keep up this hobby for as long as I am able.  And no doubt, if I ever reach debilitating old age (a possibility, it should be noted, contrary to any expectation on my part), I suppose I can still look forward to catching up on writing these accounts.

In January 2000, needing a change, I retired to pursue a consulting business in organizational development.  I expected to therefore have more time to work on this project, but at so far it has not worked out that way; Progress in both doing and writing up walks has actually decreased and the backlog of narratives to be written remains over thirty.

The reason I was previously able to do so many walks is the generous vacation time I had when employed by the City of Boston. Now, as my own boss, I find time off more difficult to get! However, each Saturday I do a walk of four or more hours; as noted, this can be local (starting from home or, more usually, somewhere in the MBTA bus service area) or regional (starting somewhere from the MBTA commuter rail system or by other public transportation). Some of the regionals have been for taking picture of past narratives walks. Indeed, the fact that I now have camra and take it with me on the Saturday walks and has does nothing to clear up the narrative backlog!

At any rate, the following additional walks have now been completed:

Here is a visual account of my progress in Massachusetts:

You can get the original of the Massachusetts map here: 

Does anyone have a comparable map showing New Hampshire or Rhode Island municipalities?

If so, please send it here: 

For some links on this topic, click here: 

To return to my index page, click here: 

(c) James Murphy, 1997-2007
Last updated October 24, 2004