Sudbury’s Patriots received the Alarm between four and five o’clock on the morning of the 19th; by sunrise as many as 34,300 men mustered on the common. After prayer they proceeded toward Concord's South Bridge. As they neared their destination they were ordered to proceed to the North Bridge. They arrived in time to be involved at Merriam's corner and beyond.

This center is the quintessential 18th and 19th century village center, with the First Parish Church of Sudbury (1797), the Old Town Cemetery (1716), the Town Common, and Town Pound (1797) in addition to historic houses such as Hosmer House (1793), Loring Parsonage (ca. 1724) and municipal buildings such as the Center School/Grange (1846) and the Town Hall (1932).

Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Concord Road,1840; New Town Cemetery, Concord Road, 1843; North Cemetery, Pantry Road,1843; Old Town Cemetery, Concord Road, 1716; Wadsworth Cemetery, Concord Road, South Sudbury,1833.

The ca. 1780 Georgian house with Greek Revival updating was constructed for Willard Maynard, a descendant of the 17th century Maynards who settled here. In the early to mid 19th century the farm was run by sons John and Moses Maynard. Apple orchards were grown and cider was produced in the 19th century. Reported to be an Underground Railroad stop.            

Colonial period field overlooking the Sudbury River. Currently being restored by the
Sudbury Historical Commission.            

This one-room dwelling was home to many generations of the Plympton family. Thomas Plympton Sr. came from England as early as 1639. He and his wife, Abigail, lived in Sudbury with their seven children. After their original home burned to the ground, later generations of the family built a second house and lived in it until 1834. Abel Prescott traveled south to Sudbury to the home of Thomas Plympton, who was Sudbury's leading Whig. The alarm bell began to ring out about 3:30 to 4 o'clock in the morning. Warning guns were fired to summon militia companies on the west side of the Sudbury River and also in East Sudbury, now Wayland. Within 35 minutes, the entire town of Sudbury had been awakened.            

First known as Rocky Plain, the area has been the civic center since ca. 1723 when a meeting house was constructed in Sudbury's West Precinct on the site of the present First Parish Church. The old burial grounds are located on both sides of Concord Road just north of the intersection. Historic dwellings and other important structures include the Loring Parsonage (ca. 1710), the Town Pound (1797), and the Revolutionary War Monument (1896) on roads radiating from the center. On April 19th, about 350 Sudbury men mustered on the Common by sunrise and, after prayer, proceeded toward South Bridge. Nearing their destination, they received orders to go to the North Bridge. Not in time to prevent the ransacking and burning at Barrett's farm, they were in time to be involved in the fighting at Merriam's Corner and Hardy's Hill.            

The How family chose a location mid-way between Boston and Worcester on the Bay Path, as well as on a trail to Hartford, Connecticut. For two centuries after the granting of John How's original license for a tavern in 1661, the How family thrived as innkeepers. John's son, Samuel, applied for a license in 1692 and in 1694 built his own tavern. In turn, he deeded his son David 30 acres in 1702 on which to build another inn, which still stands, and was to become famous in Longfellow's "Tales of a Wayside Inn." This inn was a two-room building with a common room below and a chamber above and was known as "How's Tavern." By 1716, David How added "House Number Two" to the original building, consisting of a room downstairs and one upstairs, both to the left of the original Inn's entrance. David's son Ezekiel became proprietor of the Inn in 1774 and changed the name to the "Red Horse Tavern." Lt. Col. Ezekiel How led the 4th Regiment of Middlesex County Militia on April 19, 1775.            

This Federal Style house was embellished at the turn of the 20th century when it became the estate of Ralph Adams Cram, noted architect. Fletcher Steele designed the landscape. Cram designed and built a chapel (1914) on his land which now along with his and his wife’s burial site is on the St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church property.

This house at the 140-acre Briardale Farm was purchased by Mr. Levenstein in ca. 1920s. He rebuilt it as a mansion, which burned and he rebuilt it immediately. He raised racehorses on the farm. In 1932 he sold it to Frost, a wealthy gentleman farmer who raised and sold sheep, and converted the horse stables to a poultry barn. The property changed hands several times in late 20th century until the town purchased the house and grounds. Moderate-income condominiums were built on the land surrounding the house.

This was known as the Reverend Linus H. Shaw Hard Candy House, because candy was once made here.

Historically known as the John and Obadiah Perry House, the original Federal style was altered substantially in the colonial revival and neo-colonial periods. It was called Home Plate Farm by Babe Ruth, who lived here from 1922 to 1926. The farmland was subdivided in the late 20th century.

A small park on 4.4 acres lies adjacent to the historic Hosmer House. Used for passive recreation, the park has paths, a bridge, a pond and benches. It is also used on the Fourth of July for the Craft Fair. Dedicated in 1975. A September 11th Memorial has bronze plaques naming the three Sudbury residents who died in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The Refuge includes 548 acres of wetlands and upland along the Sudbury River.

Hop Brook originates in Marlborough and flows in an easterly direction through several of Sudbury’s ponds to the Sudbury River. It is the largest tributary of the Sudbury River, and was the site of Sudbury’s first mills established by Peter and Thomas Noyes in 1656. At least seven mills (saw, grist and fulling) were powered by Hop Brook, and area farmers also used it for a water source for crops and livestock. Only remnants of mills and dams remain on the millponds.

The feature known as the Indian Grinding Stone is located on private property on Green Hill Road off Route 20. It is just 30 feet back from the road within the front setback of the property on which there is a modern house. The boulder is framed by a post and rail fence that runs behind the stone and along the two sides, but not in front. A significant piece of the boulder has been hollowed out forming a large bowl-like depression on one side of the boulder; the edges are rounded and the bottom of the bowl or mortar is smooth as if a pestle were used repeatedly for grinding.

Nobscot Reservation (Nobscot means “place of the fallen rock”) comprises over 480 acres, of which 311 acres are in Sudbury and the balance in the town of Framingham. The reservation is owned by the Knox Trail Council of the Boy Scouts of America and is part of Nobscot Hill, an area of about 600 acres in Sudbury. A 118-acre parcel adjacent to the reservation, with trails to the top of the hill, is owned by Sudbury and known as the Nobscot Conservation Area. The reservation once comprised several farms, with open farm-land, stone walls and farm buildings; now only the stone foundations of buildings and the stone walls remain; and much of the land has reverted to woodland. There are a number of interesting geological features such as kettle holes and eskers that tell the history of the land formed by a receding glacier.

The Sudbury River begins in Westborough and flows easterly to Framingham and then north and northeasterly through Wayland to Sudbury and Lincoln and from there on to Concord where it joins with the Assabet River at Egg Rock to become the Concord River. Several organizations are concerned about preserving the quality of these rivers and watersheds such as the SuAsCo Watershed Association and Sudbury Valley Trustees. There are three or four privately owned lots fronting on the river in Sudbury. All the remaining shoreline is owned by the Town of Sudbury or the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.

Sudbury Center, first known as Rocky Plain, has been the civic center since ca. 1723 when a meetinghouse was constructed in Sudbury’s West Precinct on the site of the present First Parish Church. At the intersection of Concord Road, Old Sudbury Road and Hudson Road is a triangular green around which civic and religious buildings are arranged. The old burial grounds are located on both sides of Concord Road just north of the intersection. Historic dwellings and other important structures such as the Loring Parsonage (ca. 1710), the Town Pound (1797) and the Revolutionary War Monument (1896) line the roads radiating from the center. The center is historically and architecturally rich with resources that convey a sense of the evolution of this important community.

Water Row was laid out over an old Native American trail that followed the broad marshland of the Sudbury River. It is one of Sudbury’s most scenic roads with stunning views of marshland, the Sudbury River, meadows, an historic site and an occasional historic house. From south to north, Water Row passes through wetlands before crossing Old Sudbury Road (Route 27). On the west side of Water Row, north of Old Sudbury Road, is the site of the Haynes Garrison which is commemorated by a 1922 Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) marker and some remnants of the foundation. Throughout,Water Row winds through the river meadows with stunning views across these meadows at any time of the year.

The Wayside Inn property is an excellent example of the complexity of some heritage landscapes that have many layers of features and uses. The property began as a two-room dwelling in 1702 and was enlarged to an inn in 1716. From that time until 1861 the inn operated with generations of the original innkeeper’s family as proprietors. Overnight accommodations were resumed in 1897 under the name of Longfellow’s Wayside Inn (as immortalized in his poem Tales of a Wayside Inn) until 1919 after which the property was sold to Henry Ford in 1923.
During his years of ownership, Ford embellished the property by restoring the inn, moving the 1798 Redstone Schoolhouse from Sterling, MA to this site in 1926, constructing the Grist Mill on Hop Brook at Grist Mill Pond in 1929 and constructing the Martha-Mary Chapel in 1940. He also purchased nearby land, accumulating about 3,000 contiguous acres of millponds, agricultural fields and land along Hop Brook. Gardens were established around the inn or improved, as was the Longfellow Garden, which is surrounded by a brick garden wall. In 1927 the Boston Post Road was re-routed away from the inn at Ford’s expense to save the inn from the negative impact of passing truck traffic.