Historical Maps of Sudbury <> Land Grants to Sudbury <> Before the English <> jch.com/history <> YON

The Evolution of the Town Boundaries of Sudbury

The evolution of Sudbury's Town Boundaries occured in four phases: the initial Grants, the meetinghouse changes, the split of the original town and the creation of Maynard. The change dates are: 1638, 1640, 1649, 1721, 1730, 1780, and 1871.

Slideshow: Boundaries of Sudbury 1638-1871

For more on why the changes happened, see The Westerly Precinct and the Shape of Sudbury

While I was writing that and trying to make maps to illustrate the changes I came to the conclusing that I needed to start over with a completely blank basemap. I was able to create such a map at maps.massgis.digital.mass.gov/MassMapper, however, it was too blank. I added an exagerated map of the rivers to give context.

image TownBounds1871.jpg
TownBounds1871.jpg - 2200x2480
image TownBounds1871street.jpg
TownBounds1871street.jpg - 2200x2480
image GrantsOverWalling1856Map.jpg 1638 Original Grant from the Mass Bay Colony
1640 Second Grant from the Colony
1649 Two Mile Grant from the Colony
1721 Addition of Natick Farmers
1730 Land Trade with Stow
1780 Split with East Sudbury
1871 Creation of Maynard

image strip of changes

See All Frames from the Slideshow

There are two wrinkles I would like to find out:
How was the land trade with Stow decided in 1730?
When was the little trianlge added at the join with Weston & Lincoln. I just added it the 1721 version.

I tried using the 1856 Walling map as a base map, but, it just did not work, as you can see here:
image WholeTownThree.jpg

Early Town Boudaries

Here is a draft the earliest boundaries of the town around Sudbury.

image WestTownGrants1640.jpg
Sudbury is one of 3 inland towns
image WestTownsZoom.jpg
WestTownsZoom
image Hall1930HowMassGrew1642.jpg
Hall 1930 How Mass Grew 1642
image WatertownBoundsMap2400.jpg
Bond 1860 Watertown Bounds

Left, courtesy of History Cambridge, https://historycambridge.org/
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

Right, Map of the original bounds of Watertown from:
Genealogies of the families and descendants of the early settlers of Watertown,
Massachusetts, including Waltham and Weston: to which is appended the early history of the town,
Henry Bond, 1860.

Hall1930HowMassachusettsGrewMaps.pdf

See Also: jch.com/sudbury/Grants.html
thanks to freeconvert.com for free video cropping

jch.com/sudbury/bounds created 2023-09-09 <> YON