Arlington, Massachusetts

Arlington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, six miles (10 km) northwest of Boston. The Town of Arlington was originally settled by European colonists in 1635 as a village within the boundaries of Cambridge, Massachusetts under the name Menotomy, an Algonquian word meaning “swift running water.”

Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride to alert colonists took him through Menotomy, now known as Arlington. Later on that first day of the American Revolution, more blood was shed in Menotomy than in the battles of Lexington and Concord combined. Minutemen from surrounding towns converged on the town to ambush the British on their retreat from Concord and Lexington. The Jason Russell House, a yellow colonial, is a museum commemorating those 12 Americans, including Russell himself, who were killed in and around this pictured dwelling on April 19, 1775. Bullet holes from the fighting are still visible in the interior walls.

In 1979, the first spreadsheet software program, VisiCalc, was developed by Bob Frankston and Dan Bricklin in the attic of the Arlington apartment rented by Frankston. Arlington, located in eastern Massachusetts, is bordered by the cities of Medford to the northeast, Somerville to the east, Cambridge to the southeast and the towns of Winchester to the north, Lexington to the west and Belmont to the south.