Historic Sites in Middlesex County

History of Middlesex County

Middlesex County, west and north of Boston, is one of the original four shires of 1643 and is now the most populous county in New England. The American Revolution began here on April 19, 1775, at Lexington Green and Concord's North Bridge, now part of Minute Man National Historical Park.

Cambridge is home to Harvard, founded in 1636, and to the Longfellow House, George Washington's headquarters in 1775–76. Concord was home to Emerson, Hawthorne, the Alcotts, and Thoreau, who lived at Walden Pond from 1845 to 1847. Many of them are buried on Author's Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. The county also cradled American industry: Waltham's Boston Manufacturing Company opened in 1814, and the planned mill city of Lowell followed. Lowell National Historical Park dates to 1978.