15 Best Things to Do in Duxbury (MA)
Duxbury is an upscale community on the South Shore, a town that made a name for itself at the end of the Age of Sail in the early 1800s.
Duxbury has a wonderful public beach park located on a long crescent of sand that extends into Cape Cod Bay for six miles.
Beyond the coast, the sheltered waters of Duxbury Bay proved ideal for shipbuilding, and at the end of the 18th century shipyards here developed from schooners to three-masted ships.
These ships brought unprecedented riches to local merchants, and you can see that wealth two centuries later in the Old Shipbuilding Company Historic District along Washington Street.
The majority of housing in the area is Federal-style, and there is a history of rapid construction. This was caused by a temporary crisis after the Embargo Act of 1807, when the city's skilled lumbermen were hired for a time to work on houses rather than on ships.
1. Duxbury Beach Park
Duxbury Beach, a six-mile-long stretch of Cape Cod Bay, is one of the most beautiful and accessible beaches in Massachusetts.
The beach lies partly in Marshfield, Duxbury and Plymouth, and is connected to Powder Point in Duxbury by a wooden bridge, first built in 1892 and rebuilt in the same style in the 1980s.
The bridge is the best way to get to Lifeguard Beach Park if you have a parking sticker, and if you're a day visitor you can head north through Marshfield.
The beach is always well kept, and with warm water in summer, the beach is particularly beautiful at low tide when there is a large pile of sand, shallow water and fewer rocks.
For dining, there's Blackman's Restaurant, which serves New England seafood classics like fish and chips, clam strips, scallops, and lobster rolls.
2. Alden House Historic Site
Posted on a plateau above the Bluefish River is the site of the Mayflower cooper John Alden (ca. 1598-1687) and his wife Priscilla (ca. 1602-c? 1685), also Mayflower passengers, raised their ten children. They became respected members of the Plymouth Colony.
The couple is best known for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's fictional poem, The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858).
The Alden family owns the land, which includes the foundations of John and Priscilla's house (c. 1630), and a standing house, probably built by Alden's grandson in the late 18th century.
The grounds, along with the heritage gardens, are open year-round, while guided tours of the remaining house take place on Saturday afternoons, from June to October.
3. Myles Standish Monument State Reservation
Near the site of his corner home in Duxbury, there is a state park and tower dedicated to Miles Standish (c. 1584-1656), military commander of the Plymouth Colony.
It occupies a wonderful location crowned by Captain's Hill, 200 feet above sea level.
The monument, a 116-foot-tall granite tower with a 14-foot statue of Standish, was erected in the late 1890s, when Duxbury began to attract tourism.
You can climb 125 steps to the top of the tower on weekends, starting Memorial Day weekend, for a stunning view of South Beach.
The panorama includes the Blue Hills, Duxbury Beach, Plymouth Harbor and numerous towers and lighthouses. If the tower isn't open when you visit, the hilltop view is still worth the climb.
4. Old Shipbuilder’s Historic District
One way to learn about Duxbury's rich maritime history is to simply drive along Washington Street, occasionally glancing down the side streets.
From Hall's Corner to Powder Point Avenue, the street runs parallel to the beach, surrounded by nearly 200 historic homes, most of which were built in the Federal style between 1780 and 1840.
The prosperity of this era was driven by maritime trade, and wealthy shipbuilders and shipowners built beautiful wooden homes for their prosperity.
A notable example is the Nathaniel Winsor, Jr. House at 479 Washington Street, now owned by the Duxbury Rural and Historical Society (more below).
See also the Charles Drew, Jr. House at 685 Washington Street (1826), the Samuel Delano, Jr. House (1780) at 36 Bloomfield Lane, and the Benjamin Bosworth House (1794) at 310 Washington Street.
5. Island Creek Oysters
The calm, cool, salty waters of Duxbury Bay are ideal for producing world-class oysters.
Interestingly, no one noticed this fact until the 1990s when Skip Bennett, son of a local lobster man, began harvesting oysters here with the help of friends and family.
Today, Island Creek Oysters is one of only a few oyster hatcheries in the Northeast, but also an oyster distributor with nearly 100 farms, an online retail and restaurant business in the Boston area and an international development company.
In the summer, you can visit the farm aboard the Nathaniel Winsor, a 27-foot Carolina skiff that heads straight to the center, and discover what goes into growing oysters, and what makes Island Creek oysters so special.
The experience includes drinks, plenty of first-hand stories, and delicious oysters, including shucking tips so you can open them like a pro.
6. Nathaniel Winsor, Jr. House
The headquarters of the Duxbury Rural and Historical Society is a large Federal-style house built for wealthy shipping merchant Nathaniel Winsor, Jr. and his wife, Hannah Loring Winsor.
Winsor belonged to the third generation of a famous shipbuilding family, and his father began manufacturing sailboats on a large scale after the American Revolution.
Nathaniel Winsor, Jr.'s son later found one of the first clipper lines between Boston and San Francisco. The society acquired the house in 1997, and it is open to the public free of charge from Monday to Friday.
You can see the stately proportions and decoration of the house up close, with columns at the corners and a large portal, with oval fanlights and sidelights.
Nathaniel Winsor Jr., who was famous for carving statues, is believed to have carved at least the interior wood carvings. The building is used by the association for educational programs, special events, and meetings throughout the year.
7. Myles Standish Burial Ground (Old Burial Ground)
In Duxbury, you can visit what is believed to be the oldest preserved cemetery in the country. On a triangular plot of land about 1.5 acres, Miles Standish Cemetery was established around 1638 and is the final resting place for many of the Mayflower Pilgrims, including Miles Standish.
Its possible remains were found in the early 1890s, and a magnificent castle-like monument was built on top, with cannons (thrown in Boston in 1853) at each corner.
The oldest surviving grave in the cemetery is that of Jonathan Alden (died 1697), the youngest child of Mayflower Pilgrims John Alden and Priscilla Mullins Alden.
The second oldest is Ichabod Visual (1637-1700). He is remembered for his role in the merger of the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth Bay colonies in the 1690s, after he traveled to London to apply for a new royal charter for the Plymouth Colony.
8. North Hill Marsh (Eastern Greenbelt)
More than 1,000 acres of Duxbury's interior are captured by the Wetlands District, a patchwork of properties owned by public and private groups, such as the Duxbury Conservation Commission and Massachusetts Audubon.
The good news is that these parcels are connected by an extensive trail system in an ever-changing landscape.
Some of these tracks are very old, especially on the eastern side of the moor, including a section of the Green Harbor Track between Plymouth and Marshfield, which dates back to 1623.
North Hill Marsh is the Moss Audubon Wildlife Refuge on the south edge of the pond, where you can see rare spotted and box turtles at the water's edge, as well as waterfowl such as the masked merganser, herons, black-headed grebes, and the black-ringed crow. Ducks too.
Mass. Audubon also installed nesting boxes around the marsh to support about 100 pairs of tree swallows.
9. Bradford House
Also in the care of the Duxbury Rural and Historical Society is a Federal-style log house built in 1807 by Captain Gershom Bradford.
The residence had interesting beginnings, as Bradford's wife, Sarah Hickling Bradford, oversaw the early stages of construction while her husband was a prisoner of the French.
One of the fascinating things about Bradford House is that it was owned and run by a succession of women in the 19th century.
Meanwhile, Gershom and Sarah's four daughters had prominent careers, in the abolitionist movement, as Civil War nurses, or as artists and amateur botanists.
You'll learn more about the Bradford family on a public tour from June to fall. You'll find volumes of the Bradford family heirloom, correspondence, chronicles, photographs, and other records relating to one of the city's best-documented families.
10. French memories
A Duxbury favorite culinary asset for over three decades, French Memories is an authentic French pastry shop that makes French bread, croissants, tarts, éclairs, macarons, mousses, choux pastry and other exquisite creations.
Co-owner, Philippe Audier, grew up in Paris and comes from a long line of pastry chefs. The store has become a destination for the entire South Coast, offering a large menu of baguette sandwiches, paninis, croissant sandwiches, wraps and quiches, as well as desserts.
Many of these delicious options use imported French ingredients, from cheeses like Bleu d'Auvergne and Brie to cornichons and pâtés.
11. Art Complex Museum
Adjacent to Alden House is the Regional Art Center in a stunning building created in the early 1970s and set in 13 acres of grounds.
The museum, founded by Carl A. Weyerhaeuser (1901-1996) and his wife Edith Greenleaf Weyerhaeuser (1912-2000), an 8,000-strong collection of Shaker furniture, antiques, contemporary art, American paintings, European prints, and more. Known as, and works on paper.
You can visit the space dedicated to contemporary art displays as well as exhibitions drawn from the museum's impressive stock, while the grounds are decorated with works of sculpture.
Brought here from Kyoto in 1975, the Art Complex Museum is a lively venue, with a busy schedule of concerts, lectures, educational programs, demonstrations and tea ceremonies throughout the year.
12. Farfar’s Danish Ice Cream Shop
Another family-owned business staple that should stay on your radar in Duxbury is an ice cream shop that's been open for more than four decades.
Farfar's, which means "father's father" in Danish, is named after patron Walter Simonsen, a Danish immigrant who had a successful career in the frozen dessert industry, developing recipes for HP Hood.
This store has a wider selection of flavors than the usual chain. Blackberries, peanut butter, dark chocolate, and Danish sweet cream make a great base for toppings like mixed nuts and crushed Oreos.
You can make your own sundaes, and the shop also makes ice cream cakes that range from four to eight inches in size.
13. King Caesar House
Ezra Weston II (1772–1842) was Duxbury's greatest shipbuilder and merchant of the 19th century, who inherited the title of King Caesar from his father, Ezra I (d. 1822).
Completed in 1809, her stately Federal-style house remained in the family until the 1880s when the property was sold as a schoolhouse and the house became the schoolmaster's residence.
The Duxbury Rural and Historical Society acquired the property in the 1960s, and decorated the building with antiques and memorabilia depicting Duxbury's shipbuilding days.
On the water here, parts of the old King Caesar Pier can be seen in Bumps State Park, named after Herman Carey Bumps (1862-1943), president of Taft College, whose house was restored in the 1930s and 1940s.
The society offers tours from June through fall, and highlights include Weston's bedroom, counting rooms, and his engine room.
14. Bay Farm Trails
This town-owned land is located on the shore of Kingston Bay adjacent to the Kingston Bay Conservation Area, and is the southern terminus of the Bay Circuit Trail (more below).
Purchased in stages since the 1960s, Bay Farm's agricultural history dates back to 1627.
At 80 acres, with two miles of trails, Gulf Ranch consists of a variety of habitats, including grasslands, hardwood forests, wetlands, salt marshes, beaches, and rocky shorelines including tidal flats. There are also pools.
There is a wonderful stand of cedar trees along the yellow trail, and a sign on the Kingston side indicates the 42nd parallel, which passes through the property.
15. Bay Circuit Trail
The Bay Circuit Trail winds through the Boston suburbs for 230 miles all the way to Plum Island in Newburyport.
The route crosses reserves, parks and protected areas where possible, and passes several sites of cultural and historical interest, such as Minuteman National Park.
From the Bay Farm trailhead, the trail splits into two branches, one via Kingston and Pembroke, the other northwest via Duxbury.
Later in the trip, you'll travel through North Hill Marsh, but also through a series of beautiful listed conservation lands, such as Cranberry Bog, Duxbury Bogs and Ashwood Forest.