Boundary Stone between Leominster, Fitchburg and Westminster

 

I was wandering around near the right hand arrow and found an interesting standing stone. Coming home and looking at a map I figure it must have been about where that corner is between the three towns: Fitchburg (above), Leominster (to the right), and Westminster (to the left). It certainly makes me wonder if there is another standing stone over there on the left, on Snow Hill. But I am not going to go look. I have already spent too many walks over there seeing nothing. 

Thinking the notion of standing stones was not really validated even though, ironically, I had already found one pointy prominent rock in the middle of a rock pile site. Then I spotted this from above and realized my thoughts were foolish and thought "Now THAT'S a standing stone".

As you can see, though, it turned out to be a very "Anglo" sort of production. 

 

A few years ago - say in 1848 - this would probably have been standing in an open field, visible from a long way away. Is that why it got so grafitti'ed? Or was it some kind of pride expressed by the surveyors who were laying out the town? And then why was it necessary for Fitchburg to get an extra little piece of land south of Rt 2? There is surely a story there but I think it is not a complicated one: Sawmill Pond is a nice reservoir and Fitchburg needs its water power.

Perhaps the "L" is because this is a corner of Leominster. 
Looking back uphill:

If you want to get there today, you have to work for it.