Signal Hill is a open space preserve located in Canton, in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

; it is centered on a rocky knoll by the same name. The property, acquired in 2005 by the land conservation non-profit organization

The Trustees of Reservations ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

, offers frontage on the

Neponset River The Neponset River is a river in eastern Massachusetts in the United States. Its headwaters are at the Neponset Reservoir in Foxborough, near Gillette Stadium. From there, the Neponset meanders generally northeast for about to its mouth at ...

and views of

Great Blue Hill Great Blue Hill is a hill of 635 feet (194 m) located within the Blue Hills Reservation in Milton, Randolph and Canton, Massachusetts, about south of downtown Boston. It is the highest point in Norfolk County and the Greater Boston area. ...

and

Downtown Boston Downtown Boston is the central business district of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Boston was founded in 1630. The largest of the city's commercial districts, Downtown is the location of many corporate or regional headquarters; city, c ...

from open ledges. The Signal Hill preserve also includes wetlands, open fields, and a car-top boating access point. Signal Hill contains the Wamsutta archaeological site, discovered during construction of

Interstate 95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, north to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the ...

, which was a seasonal camp for

Paleo-Indian Paleo-Indians were the first peoples who entered and subsequently inhabited the Americas towards the end of the Late Pleistocene period. The prefix ''paleo-'' comes from . The term ''Paleo-Indians'' applies specifically to the lithic period in ...

radiocarbon dated Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was de ...

by nearby charcoal remains to 12,140 before present, around the time of the last

glacial retreat The retreat of glaciers since 1850 is a well-documented effect of climate change. The retreat of mountain glaciers provides evidence for the rise in global temperatures since the late 19th century. Examples include mountain glaciers in western ...

, when rapid melting of the Wisconsin continental glacier created the mile-wide channel through which today's Neponset River flows. At this time, Signal Hill was a peninsula extending into a large lake of glacial meltwater. It is currently abutted by

as well as industrial and suburban land to the east, and river floodplain to the west. The preserve is open to non-motorized carry-in boating, hiking, picnicking, fishing, and similar pursuits. A trailhead for the 1.3 mile trail system is located on University Road in Canton.

Gallery

File:Signal Hill, Canton MA.jpg, The hill in Winter File:Signal Hill P1130635.jpg, View of Great Blue Hill File:Signal Hill P1130637.jpg, View of Downtown Boston skyline File:Signal Hill P1130640.jpg, Neponset River

References

External links

The Trustees of Reservations
Protected areas of Norfolk County, Massachusetts The Trustees of Reservations Open space reserves of Massachusetts Landforms of Norfolk County, Massachusetts Hills of Massachusetts Protected areas established in 2005 2005 establishments in Massachusetts {{NorfolkCountyMA-geo-stub