• The first permanent Colonial settlements in Sudbury took place in 1638.
  
  
• The number of Colonial men, women, and children who were permanent residents of Sudbury in early 1639 was about 130.
  

• Repeated contact with European explorers, fur traders and fishermen in the 1500s and early 1600s caused multiple epidemics of smallpox and other European diseases in Native American tribes living in what we now call New England.
  
  
  • Prior to 1500 these European diseases did not exist in the area we call New England.
    
    
  • The immune systems of the Native Americans living in the area we call New England had no defense against these new diseases.
    
    
  • Most Native Americans exposed to these European diseases died.
    
    
  • By 1639 these deadly epidemics had greatly reduced the numbers of Native Americans who visited and/or used the land that became Sudbury.
    
  
  
• Extensive evidence has been found of earlier Native American activities in this area, some dating back thousands of years.
  
  
  • One example is the  Grinding Stone  pictured and described in the "Historic Sudbury Trail" on the Town of Sudbury web site.
    

• The Sudbury land occupied by the Sudbury settlers was purchased from a local Native American man named Cato (also spelled Karte) individually or with his brothers.
  
  
• Cato was given the Colonial title of respect and rank of "Goodman" by the Sudbury settlers.
  
  
• Goodman Cato and his family lived on what is still called Goodman's Hill in the present Town of Sudbury.
  

• Note that the Massachusetts Bay Colony did NOT include large areas of the present State of MA such as the Plymouth Colony (now the present MA Counties of Plymouth, Bristol, and Barnstable).
  

• "INLAND" means above the flow of tide waters from the Atlantic Ocean.
  
  
  • The FIRST (1635) was the original Town of Concord, then and now the immediate northern neighbor of Sudbury, and the SECOND (1636) was the original Town of Dedham.
    

• There was no possibility of escape by ship if needed;
  
  
• Emergency resources were about ten hours away in the Boston area;
  
  
• There was mainly wilderness beyond the southern and western borders of the Town.
  

• The original Town of Sudbury also included most of the present Towns of Wayland and of Maynard.
  
  
• See  D.  The Original Town of Sudbury Had a Larger Area  below for details.
  

• It is important to note that the very earliest occupied settlements and that central feature of a "Puritan Village", the earliest church/meeting house, were on lands in the eastern part of the original Town of Sudbury that are within the present Town of Wayland.
  
  
  • The earliest church/meeting house was built in 1643 at the site of the present  North Cemetery  of the Town of Wayland.
    
    
    • North Cemetery is located on the northeast side of Old Sudbury Road (Route 27) about halfway between the traffic light at Wayland Center and the bridge over the Sudbury River.
      
      
    • This site is identified as the "First Town Center" by a roadside historical marker.
      
    
    
  • A large map of the  First Roads and House-Lots  (including the "Meeting-House Lot") of the earliest settlements is on the Town of Sudbury web site.
    
    
  • It is not surprising that the first settlements were in the eastern part of the original Town of Sudbury, since a substantial river (now called the Sudbury River) flowed from south to north through the original Town and gave some protection to those settlers living east of it.
    
    
    • The river was harder to cross during much of the year in 1639 than is today's usually placid Sudbury River whose flow is controlled by upstream and downstream dams.
      

• The area within the original Town of Watertown extended west to the eastern border of the original Town of Sudbury.
  
  
  • The original Town of Watertown was much larger in area than the present Town of Watertown and also included the present Towns of Weston (the immediate eastern neighbor of Wayland) and Waltham.
    

• Several of the first settlers of the original Town of Sudbury had lived in or near Sudbury, Suffolk, England.
  
  
  • Sudbury, Suffolk, England is an ancient market town which existed prior to the year 800.
    

• This short war lasted in southern New England from June 1675 to August 1676.
  
  
• This bloody war had a significant impact on American history over the following 300 years.
  

• Regain control of their former lands;
  
  
• Practice their culture without outside interference;
  
  
• Put an end to their poor treatment by the English Colonial authorities, and in some cases, settlers.
  

• Their population was greatly reduced which opened up even more land for new Colonial settlements.
  
  
• It became even more difficult for them to practice their culture.
  
  
• Their attempt to kill or drive out all English Colonial residents created a predictable reaction that led to bad treatment of the surviving hostile Native Americans.
  

• This change started in New England and over time spread to other Colonies.
  
  
• This change was reinforced by the widespread killing of Colonial civilians and destruction of their property by Native American warriors during the four French and Indian wars in the period 1689 to 1763.
  
  
• This change led to the TERRIBLE TREATMENT of most Native Americans over the next three hundred years.
  

• Burning hundreds of living, defenseless Native American women, children, and elderly men to death at a time;
  
  
• Selling large numbers of Native American men, women, and children into slavery in the West Indies;
  
  
• Imprisoning large numbers of nonhostile Native Americans in isolated camps where only about half survived.
  

• The total (Native American + English Colonial) per capita death rate in this SHORT war was about TWENTY times HIGHER than that of the U. S. Civil War, the second worst American war by this measure.
  

• Over half of the roughly one hundred Towns within New England were damaged or destroyed.
  
  
• The loss of life and property for English Colonial residents was the greatest in frontier Towns.
  

• At this point the original Town of Sudbury became a frontier Town, and the part of the Town west of the Sudbury River (i. e., the present Towns of Sudbury and Maynard) was most exposed to harm.
  

• The battles resulting from that attack are called the "Sudbury Fight".
  
  
• This attack caused a large number of deaths on the English Colonial side and an unknown but perhaps significant number on the hostile Native American side.
  
  
• Some Sudbury residents were killed in this attack, but the vast majority of English Colonials killed were among the several groups of soldiers who came from other Towns to try to save Sudbury from destruction.
  
  
  • Almost all deaths of English Colonial soldiers and civilians happened WEST of the river.
    
    
  • The largest loss of life was in a major battle on and around what is now called Green Hill northeast of the present Mill Village shopping center.
    
  
  
• In the area of the original Town of Sudbury west of the river (i. e., the present Towns of Sudbury and Maynard) most homes, barns, farm animals, tools, and other property were destroyed or stolen.
  
  
• However, most of the Sudbury residents living west of the river were able to escape to fortified houses stocked with food, water, weapons, ammunition, and gunpowder.
  
  
  • These fortified houses were successfully defended against repeated attacks over many hours.
    
  
  
• There was much less property damage in the more heavily populated area east of the river (i. e., the present Town of Wayland).
  
  
  • The Sudbury militia plus soldiers from other Towns were able to fight off the Native American attackers and drive them out of the area east of the river.
    

• At this point in time the hostile Native American forces completely controlled the battlefield west of the river, and they probably could have killed many more Colonial soldiers and civilians if they had continued their attacks after dark.
  

• However, some historians have speculated that the primary mission of the hostile Native American forces in their attack on the original Town of Sudbury was to acquire much needed supplies of food, weapons, ammunition, and gunpowder and to totally destroy the Town so that they could more easily attack coastal Towns where even larger stores of these items could be acquired.
  
  
• The Native American forces failed to acquire meaningful amounts of needed supplies in Sudbury, and they failed to totally destroy the Town.
  
  
• The stiff resistance by Sudbury residents, the Sudbury militia, and the groups of English Colonial soldiers from other Towns may have prevented the hostile Native American forces from using Sudbury as a base to attack the adjoining Town of Watertown and other coastal Towns.
  
  
• Thus, the "Sudbury Fight" may have been a strategic failure for the hostile Native American forces.
  

• If the "Sudbury Fight" played a major role in causing this turning point in the war, then the "Sudbury Fight" was very important.
  

• They were very active in the battles that took place on 19 April 1775, and two of them were killed in action on that day.
  

• See  The Sudbury Companies of Militia and Minute  for an overview and pictures (click each picture for a larger version).
  
  
• More detailed information is given at the  Sudbury Companies  web site.
  

• See the  Sudbury Ancient Fyfe and Drum Companie  for many re-enactment pictures (in "The Galleries") and music of that era.
  

• The population within the Town boundaries of 1775 was 2160, which was higher than many other Towns outside of Boston in what would become the State of Massachusetts;
  
  
• Almost all of the adult male population of about 500 living within the Town boundaries of 1775 fought in the Revolutionary War;
  
  
  • Even elderly men served; the first Sudbury war death was an eighty-year-old man on 19 April 1775.
    
  
  
• More than 350 of Sudbury men were experienced soldiers, having served in one or more of the four French and Indian Wars.
  

• The area of original Town of Sudbury included most of the area within the present Towns of Wayland and Maynard and all of the area within the present Town of Sudbury.
  
  
• The evolution of the land within Sudbury is summarized in points 4. through 7. just below in this section, and this evolution includes:
  
  
  • A major subtraction of land in 1780 when what is now the Town of Wayland split off;
    
    
  • A small addition of land in 1721;
    
    
  • Two small subtractions of land in 1730 and 1871.
    

• Three large grants were made to the Town in 1638, 1640, and 1649.
  
  
• Two small grants were made in 1639 and 1649 to individuals as noted below.
  

• In addition, it usually took many years to properly survey and adjust boundaries of land grants due to difficult topography, hostile Native Americans, lack of proper equipment, disputes between Towns, etc.
  

• This general area is now called the Cochituate Village part of the present Town of Wayland.
  

• This triangle of land was immediately northwest of what is now called the Assabet River in what is now the Town of Maynard.
  
  
• This area included 200 acres granted to William Browne in 1649.
  

• The NEW Town of East Sudbury included the 3.3 square mile addition made in 1721.
  
  
• The NEW Town of East Sudbury also included 12 square miles of lands from the original Town of Sudbury.
  
  
  • Most of this 12 square mile area was east of the Sudbury River.
    
    
  • A small part of the 12 square mile area was land now called Pelham Island just west of the Sudbury River.
    
    
    • Pelham Island is the site of a 400 acre land grant made to Herbert Pelham and his father-in-law Mr. Walgrave in 1639.
      
  
  
• In 1835 the Town of East Sudbury changed its name to the Town of Wayland.
  
  
• See the following section  E.  The Splitting Off of East Sudbury  for some interesting historical insights.
  

• The rest of the new Town of Maynard was formed from about 2.1 square miles of land immediately northwest of the Assabet River annexed from the Town of Stow.
  
  
  • This 2.1 square mile area included the roughly 0.4 square mile area triangle of land transferred from Sudbury to Stow in 1730.
    
  
  
• Thus, in total about 3.6 square miles of land in the original Town of Sudbury ended up in the present Town of Maynard comprising two-thirds of its area of 5.3 square miles.
  

• Later, in 1835, the Town of East Sudbury changed its name to the Town of Wayland.
  

• Many early Towns in the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth Colonies originally had an area MUCH LARGER than the area of present Town of the same name.
  
  
• The reduction in size came about via formation of one or more new Towns within the original Town.
  

• The General Court normally granted permission for the formation of the NEW Town if:
  
  
  • The residents of the area making the petition agreed to meet certain requirements laid out by the General Court;
    
    
  • There were no serious objections from the residents of the pre-existing Town NOT living within the area of the proposed NEW Town.
    

"It is clear that the east siders were extremely eager to disassociate themselves from the west side. This is shown by the fact that they were willing to accept a secondary name, a smaller land area, and even a ridiculously uneven western land boundary to accomplish this breakoff as soon as they could get it through the legislature."

• The higher average wealth level of the east siders caused the east side of Town to have a higher total assessment than the west side.
  
  
• As a result the east siders paid more than half of Town taxes even though more than half of the Town population (and the associated costs for Town services) was on the west side.
  

• Also, the rules of the General Court placed the pre-split Town records with the OLD Town, using the same logic.
  

• If the 1714 petition by the residents of the west side of the original Town of Sudbury had been approved by the General Court, then the residents of the east side (now the Town of Wayland) would have:
  
  
  • Continued to live in a Town named "Sudbury";
    
    
  • Continued to possess the important pre-split Town records which go back to 1639.
    

• In favor of the position advocated by the WEST siders during several years leading up to 1714;
  
  
• In a manner that caused a much HIGHER Town tax burden for the EAST siders for several DECADES than would have been the case if they had NOT blocked the west siders from founding a NEW Town in 1714.
  

• The short run (higher taxes) and
  
  
• The long run (loss of the historic Town name of "Sudbury").
  

• She died at age 91 in 2003.
  
  
• Her 1981 book is the only published history of the Town of Wayland, and it is based on over a decade of intensive research.
  
  
• She worked from an unusually wide array of primary sources, and her historical research has been described as "flawless in accuracy", "painstaking", and "exhaustive".
  
  
• She lived in Wayland for 44 years from 1946 to 1990, and she was the first chairwoman of the Wayland Historical Commission.
  
  
• She graduated from Vassar College in 1934, she did her graduate work in economics at Radcliffe (now merged into Harvard), and she taught economics at Smith College prior to retiring to rear a family (as most married women with children in the academic world of that era were forced to do).
  

• Sudbury's population roughly TRIPLED in the 1950s and then roughly DOUBLED in the 1960s.
  
  
• The explosive growth in population has turned most farmlands into sites for private homes.
  

• Sudbury was a mostly rural community with many small farms until about 1940.
  
  
• Very few of these farms still exist.
  

• Click  Pictures  to go to the Town page;
  
  
• Click the "Historical" category at the top of the page;
  
  
• Click a Historical "Event Name" to open a page of small pictures with descriptive text;
  
  
• Click the small pictures to enlarge them.
  

• Excellent public schools;
  
  
• High real-estate taxes, most of which are devoted to supporting the public schools;
  
  
• Rural character (heavily wooded, narrow winding roads bordered by old stone walls);
  
  
• Many well-maintained houses over 200 years old such as the  Hosmer House - circa 1780  ;
  
  
• Talented, well-educated, and public-spirited citizens;
  
  
• Efficient local government;
  
  
• High land and housing prices.
  

•  The Gristmill  ;
  
  
•  The Red Schoolhouse  ;
  
  
•  The Martha-Mary Chapel  .
  

• Several of these conservation lands are associated with historic sites.
  

• It can be reached by setting the destination coordinates in your GPS navigation device to 42.38256° north latitude and 71.41245° west longitude.
  

• The  Town of Sudbury web site  includes an  Archive of historic records  of Sudbury.
  
  
  • Town records date from the founding of the original Town of Sudbury in 1639 and are described as being the most detailed and complete of any early Town in all of the American Colonies.
    
    
  • The Town Archives have a section devoted to  Sudbury's History  with images, maps, and biographies of early settlers.
    
    
  • The Town Archives have a page of  Important Dates in Sudbury's History to 1850  .
    
  
  
• Click  Historic Sudbury Trail  to see a series of pictures of some historic places in the present Town of Sudbury accompanied by brief descriptions by the Town Historian (the Trail is located on the Town of Sudbury web site).
  
  
• An extensive description of  Sudbury history  was created by the local Chamber of Commerce.
  

• The History of Sudbury, Massachusetts 1638-1889, Alfred Sereno Hudson, 660 pages, The Town of Sudbury, 1889 (republished by the Sudbury Press in 1968), has no index;
  
  
• The Annals of Sudbury, Wayland and Maynard, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Alfred Sereno Hudson, 210 pages, privately published, 1891 (reprinted by Higginson in paperback in 1994), has incomplete index;
  
  
  • Indexes: A. S. Hudson's History of Sudbury, Massachusetts 1638-1889 & The Annals of Sudbury, Wayland and Maynard, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, 119 pages, edited by George D. Max, Chief Indexer: Forrest D. Bradshaw, Sudbury Historical Society, 1983;
    
  
  
• A Brief History of the Towne of Sudbury in Massachusetts: 1639-1939, Andrew D. Fuller, Jr. et al., 69 pages, Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration in Massachusetts, 1939 (revised and reprinted by the Sudbury Historical Society in 1968);
  
  
• Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town, Sumner Chilton Powell, 215 pages, Wesleyan University Press, 1963 (reprinted in paperback in 1965 and 1982);
  
  
• (Untitled) Scrapbook of Descriptions and Pictures of Historic Monuments and Houses in Sudbury, MA, Janet H. Smith, 99 pages, unpublished (available from the Reference Librarian at the Sudbury Public Library), 1975;
  
  
• The Puritan Village Evolves: a history of the Town of Wayland, Massachusetts, Helen Fitch Emery, 361 pages, Wayland Historical Commission (Phoenix Publishing), 1981;
  
  
• Sudbury: A Pictorial History, Laura Scott, 208 pages, The Donning Co., 1989;
  
  
• The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity, Jill Lepore, 384 pages, Vintage Books, 1998 (reprinted in paperback in 1999);
  
  
• Sudbury 1890-1989: 100 Years in the Life of a Town, Curtis F. Garfield, 242 pages, Porcupine Enterprises, 1999 (paperback);
  
  
• King Philip's War: The History and Legacy of America's Forgotten Conflict, Eric B. Schultz and Michael J. Tougias, 432 pages, Countryman Press, 1999 (reprinted in paperback in 2000).
  

• First, an area within certain boundaries;
  
  
• Second, the locus of the smallest unit of local government.
  

• Third, a particular form of local government used within that area.
  

• In fact some MA "Towns" contain only rural areas.
  
  
• Thus, in MA the word "Town" has a different meaning than in some other States.
  

• "Cities" are entities that used to be "Towns" but have received permission from the State to use a different form of government (which is more appropriate to entities with higher populations).
  
  
• The change in status from "Town" to "City" does not involve any change in borders.
  
  
• (For historical reasons eleven MA entities that are officially "Cities" still call themselves "Towns".)
  
  
• The 351 Cities and Towns in MA are shown on this  Large Map  in Adobe Acrobat format.
  
  
  • Repeatedly click the "+ (Plus)" sign in the Adobe viewer menu to zoom in on a particular area.
    
    
  • Sudbury and the Towns and City surrounding it (Wayland, Lincoln, Concord, Acton, Maynard, Stow, Hudson, City of Marlborough, Framingham) show up well at a 200% zoom.
    

• The borders of a MA "Town" are similar to the borders of a "Township" in certain other States.
  

• Populated settlements with place names (e. g., villages) within MA "Towns" are NOT governmental units.