Sudbury, Massachusetts

Sudbury is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, located in Boston’s MetroWest, with a rich colonial history. Incorporated in 1639, the Sudbury militia participated in the Battle of Lexington and Concord in 1775, when Sudbury members sniped on British Red Coats returning to Boston.

One of Sudbury’s historic landmarks, the Wayside Inn, claims to be the country’s oldest operating inn, built and run by the Howe family for generations. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote Tales of a Wayside Inn, a book of poems published in 1863. In the book, the poem “The Landlord’s Tale” provides the immortal phrase, “Listen my children and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.” The property was later owned, restored and expanded by Henry Ford. The expansion included a boys school, the Old Grist Mill, the Martha-Mary Chapel and the Redstone Schoolhouse, reputedly the school in the famous nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

In the post-war period, Sudbury experienced rapid growth in population and industry, associated with the minicomputer revolution. Contrary to local legend, the town’s zip code of 01776 was not specially assigned in recognition of the town’s historical connections to the Revolutionary War, according to the Sudbury Historical Society. Sudbury was ranked in 2005 as the best town in Massachusetts in which to raise a family.