(Editor’s note: the first installment of this 10-part series, “Cochituate Postcards from the Past,” appeared in the Wayland Post on Sept. 11, 2026. Read them online at www.waylandpost.org/postcards.)
Dear readers,
Many of Cochituate’s main roads were built upon ancient Indigenous trails that followed animal tracks. Tonya Largy, co-founder of the Wayland Archaeology Research Group, told me that 15,000 years ago, when the Laurentide Ice Sheet receded from our area, greenery started to grow here, and game animals came in search of food. Avoiding wet areas and steep terrain, they wore paths as they traveled between watering holes and lush grazing areas. The indigenous people, who relied heavily on those animals for food, clothing, and other needs, used those paths. Most of the animal trails ran north-south along New England’s mountains and rivers. The indigenous people expanded the network with east-west trails.
Later, European settlers set up households along those trails, including what we know today as Cochituate Road and Main Street (Route 27), Old Connecticut Path, East and West Plain streets, Oak Street, Commonwealth Road, and Rice Road. From the mid-1700s until 1805, the Moulton family ran a tavern on Old Connecticut Path, where Lavin’s stands today. We know Caleb Moulton Sr. was in town in 1747; the town reimbursed him for providing rum to the workers who built a new bridge across the Sudbury River that year. However, he did not own the property, which included a house, a barn, and a blacksmith shop, until 1752. His son, Capt. Caleb Moulton, a Revolutionary War hero, served in town government and followed the family calling as the tavern’s proprietor. Bob Lavin once showed me the original stone foundation from the tavern days. You can spot it from the parking lot. Look toward the back of the north side of the building.
Sincerely,
Sheila Carel (Wayland Post Contributor)
