Dear Mr. Hardenbergh,
I have been looking into the historical town boundaries of Massachusetts, and I very much enjoyed the web page you made a couple of years ago about the town boundaries of Sudbury. However, there were a few things I'd like to note about the boundary of Sudbury that I believed you missed.
The first is regarding the triangle-shaped tract of land at the junction of (modern-day) Wayland, Weston, and Lincoln that you questioned. At the time this was part of the Watertown-Sudbury boundary. I found this on page 989 of the book "Genealogies of the families and descendants of the early settlers of Watertown..."
It has just been stated that the General Court assigned the western limits of Watertown in March, 1636. It does not appear from the Court records, at what time the line was first surveyed; but in May, 1651, commissioners... being authorized to settle the division line between Watertown and Sudbury, did "consent and conclude that the line which was formerly by Mr. John Oliver drawn in that plan, and the same marks revised about three years since, in the presence of some of each of the towns aforesaid, commonly called the old line betwixt Watertown and Sudbury - shall forever stand and be accounted the true partition line." This line began at the south point of Concord, and was directly continuous with its southeast boundary, running ninety-six rods S. 30° 15' W., "to an angle betwixt two hills;" thence "south about half a point westerly" [S. 2° 20' W.], until it came within eighty rods of Nonesuch Pond, where "Sudbury bounds ended." By consulting the map, it will be seen that by this survey a small triangular piece of the land, originally granted to Watertown, was annexed to Sudbury.
The passage quotes from "Watertown and Sudbury Bounds" from Mass. Colony Records, Feb 10th 1651. I tried measuring the boundary line that is defined in the record using GIS software, and it indeed creates that triangle shape. Based on this passage, it seems this triangle was originally granted to Watertown, but de facto became part of Sudbury sometime in 1648 after it was surveyed.
Regarding the Natick Farmers who were adjoined to Sudbury in 1721, you may notice the land added does not accord with the original grants. The Farmers were actually de facto part of Sudbury since the early 1690's: At an adjournment of the Gen. Court of their Maj. Colony of the Mass. Bay, in Boston, March 8, 1691-2: "In answer to the petition of the selectmen of Sudbury, ordered: that the outdwellers adjoining unto the said Town, comprehended within the line beginning at Matth. Rice's, from thence to Cornet Wm. Brown's, Corporal Henry Rice's, Thomas Drury's, Tho. Walker, Jun., John How, and Samuel Winch's (not belonging to any other towne), be annexed unto the Town of Sudbury..." However, they were denied many rights by the town and should not be considered part of it territorially (according to Sudbury's town history book). For this reason, I suppose, some wanted to join Framingham, and a Mass. Court Record from June 13, 1701 called "LINE BETWEEN SUDBURY AND THE FARMS ANNEXED TO FRAMINGHAM ESTABLISHED" sets off part of Mrs. Glover's land from the other two original grants south of Sudbury, forming the current boundary (this is the current boundary between Framingham and Wayland). The confusing part is that this line was outside of Sudbury's boundaries, so I suppose it is supposed to separate the out-dwelling farmers from Framingham. Those farms were supposedly in a gray area between 1691 and 1721, given that Framinghams' original plat (by John Gore) puts them in Sudbury. This is my interpretation of the records and I am unsure if it is correct.
The last thing is that your page is missing a Sudbury boundary change, albeit a minor one. In Ch. 170 of Massachusetts Acts in 1983 it could be seen that the boundary between Sudbury and Wayland was modified west of Heard Pond. It was previously straight and is now irregular. I'm not sure what motivated this, but my guess (from looking at the map), is that the sprawl from that section of Sudbury was stretching into a barren part of Wayland, and it was easier to give that land to Sudbury.
I hope this information is helpful or interesting to you. Best, R. A.
Thank you so much for this update. I will add this email as a separate page and link it from https://jch.com/sudbury/bounds/. I will attribute authorship to R.A., unless you would like it to be you full name or any other nom de plume.
I hope to update the maps with this info… someday.
I have been meaning to look up the 1983 change, which I noticed a reference to recently. Thanks for the nudge. Here is the note about it from the 1982 special Town meeting. It Is about Victoria Road in Sudbury.
BOARD OF SELECTMEN REPORT: This article is the result of a survey performed ,by the Town Engineer at the request of the Board of Assessors to determine the exact location of our boundary with Wayland. The survey showed that property thought to be located in Sudbury was, in fact, in Wayland. This discovery affects the voting rights, tax payments and use of public schools of those landowners.
Article 3 in the 1982 Sudbury Warrant. From sudbury.ma.us/townmeeting/warrants
I'd love to know more about Dedham if you have looked into that. Do you have this paper?
The Proceedings of the Cambridge Historical Society, Volume 21, 1930-1931
HOW MASSACHUSETTS GREW, 1630-1642, A STUDY OF TOWN BOUNDARIES BY ALBERT HARRISON HALL
Thanks again!
YON - Jan C. Hardenbergh <> jch.com
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I have read Hall's paper on the town boundaries, but I've found that the information in it is mostly superficial other than the great map that came with it. The Harbor and Lands Commission released a set of town boundary atlases from 1898-1915 that includes copies of all records relevant to the contemporary town boundaries, and even sometimes the motivation for the changes. The books miss out on the subtleties, and ignore boundaries that no longer exist, but are a good starting point. They could be found on the Mass State Library website.
My (ambitious) goal is to record and map all town boundary changes in MA since the incorporation of Plymouth in 1620. In this goal I have so far only succeeded in capturing the changes since 1915. Your page on Sudbury prompted me to make notes on a few towns in the early colonial era, but Dedham was not one of them. From some basic research, it looks like Dedham's boundaries have evolved in a complex way, and for a year the town stretched all the way east to Avon, west to Bellingham, and north to Wellesley, but most of this land was annexed away over the years. On the other hand, I've looked through the statutes and I am sure that the boundaries of Dedham have not changed at all since the incorporation of Westwood in 1897. If there's anything specific about Dedham you would like me to look into, feel free to tell me, because I'm gonna need all that information later anyway.
I looked at the 1730 land transfer with Stow. You can find the relevant page from the Mass General Court Acts here: https://archive.org/details/actsresolvespass2633mass/page/496/mode/2up It appears that Peter Luce and others in Sudbury had to travel a great distance to go to church, when attending worship in Stow was more convenient, so they petitioned the General Court. I could not find the text of this petition, but I did not look very hard. In Chapter 170 (page 529) of the same book, it could be seen that the petition was granted in spite of Sudbury's response. So I guess that completes Sudbury's list of boundary changes and motivations. I believe it would be best if your page notes the addition of the triangle shaped notch as distinct from the two-mile grant, since the two-mile grant was supposedly a year later.
jch.com/bounds/NoteFromRA.html <> 2025-06-28