Today, more than 17,000 people call Sudbury home. And in the past, Sudbury has been home to many fascinating people, among them baseball great Babe Ruth, automobile mogul Henry Ford, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and both members of the musical group They Might Be Giants.

The town’s excellent education system, rich history, small-town feeling and proximity to Boston draw many of its newer residents.

Recently the community has backed its values with the purchase of conservation land and the construction of a new high school and public works building.

The $74 million high school opened its doors in the fall of 2004. The DPW building is already open for business.

Settled by colonists in 1638 and incorporated as a town a year later, the town today still had many residents who are descended from original settlers.

An active historical society and historical commission hold programs throughout the year, and the Hosmer house, circa 1815, is opened to the public several times a year.

The historic Wayside Inn, opened in 1716 as Howes Tavern, gained fame from the Longfellow poem, “Tales of A Wayside Inn,” and is the oldest continuously operating inn in the country. Bought by auto magnate Henry Ford in 1923, it is now part of an educational trust that includes the gristmill, the schoolhouse of “Mary’s Little Lamb” fame, and the Martha-Mary Chapel. The inn is an award-winning destination for many from New England and beyond.

On summer evenings, residents and visitors today watch the Sudbury Ancient Fife and Drum Companies drill or can attend a summer concert series where strawberry shortcake is served at intermission.

The Goodnow Public Library, renovated in 1999, has one of the biggest and most active volunteer groups in town and offers free educational programs, movie series, and cultural events all year.

The Sudbury Chamber of Commerce has revived an effort to beautify the business district, creating landscaping awards for businesses and hanging banners from telephone poles along Boston Post Road. The chamber also funds the Fourth of July parade, complete with marching bands, clowns, acrobats, floats, and events such as a race, a bicycle-decorating contest, a pie sale, and a flea market.

The Fairbank Senior Center provides seniors with tax and insurance experts’ advice and programs to help seniors with home repairs, transportation, and more. Also offered are various educational programs and trips.

The Fairbank Center is also a gathering place for all ages – it houses the Atkinson Pool, a gymnasium, and a Teen Center.

Sudbury…

A Brief History

By John Powers
Taken from The Sudbury Community Phone Book

“Sudbury has roots deep in American history, one cannot live here long without feeling it. The great winding river marshes, the sagging outlines of some fine old home discernible beneath a new coat of white paint, the great granite road markers, or the moss-covered stone walls running off through the woods all conform the impression.

Long before the first European settlers came into the valley of the Musketaquid, generations of men lived and died in this place, and each generation left its mark. For a thousand years the American Indian lived here. The Nipmucks of the Algonquin nation built their villages on the banks of the wide river and lived on abundant deer and fish. We are still uncovering their villages and wondering at the pottery, arrowheads, and other artifacts their civilization left behind.

In 1638, the first white settlers came to Sudbury, some came directly from England on the Confidence, and some via Watertown, ‘due to straightness of accommodation and for want of the meadow.’ This was the second settlement above the tidal streams, and it was incorporated in 1639.

The original Sudbury plantation straddled the river, land grants were from the colonial legislature and payment was made to Indian owners such as Kato (Goodman). As in all colonial villages, the meeting house was of great importance, and the first such structure was soon built east of the river in what is now known as Wayland. This was therefore the first town center.

Development west of the river began after the building of a bridge in 1643. As the settlement grew Sudbury townsman developed not merely a new community but a new concept; government with the consent of the governed.

Sudbury’s role in the development of the town meeting form of government, and it’s insistence upon the direct right of a citizen to choose his governors and make himself heard upon any issue in open forum, did much to lay the foundation of American democracy.

In the 1650’s the great issue of church-separation was fought, and Sudbury’s free townsman won their demand that ‘we shall be judged by men of our own choosing.’

With growth and prosperity came feelings of crowding, and some of the second generation settlers felt unfairly treated in the matter of land allotments.

Some therefore began to move on, making new settlements in Framingham, Marlborough, Stow, and further south and west.

In Sudbury, a second, western parish was formed in 1723 near the present Unitarian Church. Leading to the eventual separation between our present town and East Sudbury, or Wayland.

By 1654 the first great Indian war in America was being fought as the settlers withstood death and destruction hurled upon them by King Philip of Pokonoket. One of the major battles was fought on Green Hill, and today under the Wadsworth Monument rests the bodies of those who gave their lives in the effort, which stopped the eastward march of the Indian nations.

In the late 1600’s, the suspension of the right of assembly in town meeting, the jailing of protesters, and the imposition of confiscatory taxes by the grasping Governor, Sir Edmund Andros, kindled the rage of an incensed citizenry. Sudbury played an important part in the armed revolt which sent the Royal Governor back to his British monarch in chains.

In the latter years of that century, Sudbury was also touched with the grim reminders of the great witchcraft delusion as the Reverend Samuel Parris and his family fled Salem and settled here.

The 1700’s ushered in the frontier era. The effect of four great European wars between the English and the French fell with particular force upon the town. Sudbury’s famed woodsmen were heavily called upon for service in the four French and Indian wars, serving at Louisburg, Fort William Henry, Crown Point, and Ticonderoga.

Upon the town’s charge during this period were placed the victims of the conflict, the ‘French Neutrals’, who were later immortalized in Evangeline. There was hardly a family in town, which did not suffer losses during this period, and scarcely a taxpayer who did not contribute to the ransoming of those carried off to Canada by the Indians.

This was also a time of expansion. The first highways, such as Boston Post Road, teemed with peddlers, travelers, and soldiers. Taverns and ordinaries were built, to augment the famed Wayside Inn (then Howes Tavern or the Red Horse Inn) built the century before. Here, before the roaring hearths of these inns, over hard cider and rum, the growing impositions of the Stamp Act and the Tea Tax were discussed.

The people of Sudbury ‘at the Risque of Their All’ debated the liberty of man, and sent forth more than 350 men with musket and bayonet through the new Spring grass to a placed called Concord Bridge to write their beliefs in blood.

After the Revolution Sudbury again became a quiet farming community. While other towns nearby became manufacturing or transportation centers, Sudbury developed the small local industries of a self-sufficient community. There were shoe shops and blacksmiths, tanners and wheelwrights, nail factories and saw mills. From time to time, braided straw products and harnesses were made.

There were also the sinister presence of the highwayman as Captain Lightfoot and Tom Cooke passed and repassed upon the stage roads until their call of ‘Stand and deliver’ was ended upon the hangman’s noose.

After the wrenching interlude of the Civil War concern for education and enlightenment captured civic attention. New Churches were built, as were the Wadsworth Academy, the Lyceum and Goodnow Library; there were singing societies, lectures, and collations. The 1800’s also saw Sudbury’s present boundaries take shape, as Marlborough, Framingham, Wayland, and parts of Stow separated from the mother town.
The first half of the 20th century continued much as had the previous century – with quiet agricultural expansion.

By 1940, however, it became clear that Sudbury was entering a new phase of its life. Scarcely 20 miles from Boston and seven from the new Rte. 128, Sudbury began to change from a rural to a suburban community.

Here began the greatest growth period in its existence. There has been some stress and strain as the citizens, still exercising the individual freedoms so dearly bought in the past, has coped with the problems of rapid growth with their personal effort as well as their tax dollars. Building a desirable quality of life in Sudbury has been, and will continue to be, a cooperative effort of all its citizens.

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