Sudbury, town (township), Middlesex county, eastern Massachusetts, U.S. Sudbury lies along the Sudbury River, west of Boston, and includes the villages of Sudbury and South Sudbury. Settled in 1638 by Watertown residents and by English colonists, it was incorporated in 1639 and named for Sudbury, Suffolk, England. Present-day Sudbury has one of the wealthiest populations in the state. It is the site of a manufacturing and engineering laboratory for the defense contractor Raytheon.
In South Sudbury stands the restored Wayside Inn (c. 1705), which is the nation’s oldest operating inn; it served as the setting for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863). The inn is the centrepiece of a restored 18th-century “village.” Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge extends along the river through Sudbury. Inc. 1639. Area 25 square miles (65 square km). Pop. (2000) 16,841; (2010) 17,659.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.