Town of Arlington City Map Poster

About Town of Arlington

Arlington was first settled in 1635 and was originally part of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The area now known as Arlington was divided between Charlestown, Cambridge, and Watertown. In 1775 the Battle of Bunker Hill occurred in what is now Somerville but at that time it belonged to Medford (then called Westwood). On June 17th 1807 the town separated from Charlestown by vote of its citizens and took on its present name "Arlington". In 1867 the Middlesex County Poor Farm opened here with a capacity for up to 1,000 residents. It has since been renamed several times: Metropolitan State Hospital (1892), Metropolitan State Hospital for Mental Diseases (1934), Stigmatine Fathers' Home for Aged Men & Women - also known as Stigmatine Village or simply "Stiggy's" - which closed in 1999 after almost 100 years; today it is an upscale condominium development called North Point Village .