By the time it incorporated as an independent town in 1726, Kingston had, for a century, been the prestigious "North Precinct" of the Plymouth Colony, where Pilgrim leaders such as Gov. William Bradford and Dr. Samuel Fuller established their farms and second homes. Residents were granted authority by the Massachusetts General Court in 1717 to be set off from Plymouth and, in that year, Maj. John Bradford, grandson of the governor, gave the new precinct fourteen acres of what is now centralKingston. Kingston documents the rich and varied cultural, social, and commercial histories of the town and its inhabitants through the sharing of a remarkable legacy of historical and topographical photographic images. Within these pages, you will see how early Kingston prospered because of the productive lands of the Jones River and its tributaries, how iron ore was mined in the town's bogs, and how some three hundred vessels were built in the Jones River yards in the nineteenth century. In Kingston, you also will learn of the Old Colony Railroad, which came to town in 1845, and of the railroad's first two presidents, local residents Col. John Sever and Alexander Holmes.