In 1880, Robert Boodey Caverly had this 10 ton boulder moved to its present location. It took nine men and a team of oxen owned and driven by Ivory H. Kelley of Pudding Hill to move the boulder.
Robert Caverly had determined that this land was his ancestral graveyard. He wanted to bring attention to it. He had a stonecutter engrave on it the names of all the landowners since King Philip. According to Eloi Adams’ “Madbury, Its People and Places,” the first Boodey to settle in Madbury, Zachariah, was buried close to where Caverly had the boulder set.
The engravings read: King Philip, 1675; Boodey, 1695; Demeritt, 1758; Caverly, 1880. (The engraver left his mark: “Foye, Eng.”)
The Dover Inquirer ran a report of the dedication on October 28, 1880, stating that a large reunion of Boodey family members enjoyed a full day of activities at the Town Hall.
The Durham–Great Bay Rotary Club serves Durham, Lee, Madbury, Barrington and Newmarket with service projects and supporting others. Rotary has a long history of giving scholarships for graduating seniors at Oyster River High School and Newmarket High Schools; supporting the Pease Greeters, the Seacoast Hyder Hospice; FireWorks in Durham; LongMarsh Trial and Wagon Hill Trail maintenance programs; and annual turkey drive; a boot and shoe fund to serve local elementary school students, and more.