Webb Memorial State Park

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. 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.

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.

In the mid-1950s, the US Army temporarily installed NIKE-Ajax missiles at the tip of the peninsula. 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.

https://www.nps.gov/places/webb-memorial.htm