Medford is a city 6.7 miles (10.8 km) northwest of downtown Boston on the Mystic River in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the time of the 2020 U.S. Census, Medford’s population was 59,659. It is home to Tufts University, which has its campus along the Medford and Somerville border.

Native Americans inhabited the area that would become Medford for thousands of years prior to European colonization of the Americas. At the time of European contact and exploration, Medford was the winter home of the Naumkeag people, who farmed corn and created fishing weirs at multiple sites along the Mystic River. Naumkeag sachem Nanepashemet was killed and buried at his fortification in present-day Medford during a war with the Tarrantines in 1619. The contact period introduced a number of European infectious diseases which would decimate native populations in virgin soil epidemics, including a smallpox epidemic which in 1633 which killed Nanepashemet’s sons, sachems Montowompate and Wonohaquaham. Sagamore Park in West Medford is a native burial site from the contact period which includes the remains of a likely sachem, either Nanepashemet or Wonohaquaham. After the 1633 epidemic, Nanepashemet’s widow, known only as the Squaw Sachem of Mistick, led the Naumkeag, and over the next two decades would deed large parts of Naumkeag territory to English settlers. In 1639, the Massachusetts General Court purchased the land that would become present day Medford, then within the boundaries of Charlestown, from the Squaw Sachem.

Medford was settled in 1630 by English colonists as part of Charlestown, of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The settlement was originally called “Mistick” by Thomas Dudley, based on the indigenous name for the area’s river. Thomas Dudley’s party renamed the settlement “Meadford”. The name may have come from a description of the “meadow by the ford” in the Mystic River, or from two locations in England that Cradock may have known: the hamlet of Mayford or Metford in Staffordshire near Caverswall, or from the parish of Maidford or Medford (now Towcester, Northamptonshire). In 1634, the land north of the Mystic River was developed as the private plantation of Matthew Cradock, a former governor. Across the river was Ten Hills Farm, which belonged to John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony.

In 1637, the first bridge (a toll bridge) across the Mystic River was built at the site of the present-day Cradock Bridge, which carries Main Street into Medford Square. It would be the only bridge across the Mystic until 1787, and as such became a major route for traffic coming into Boston from the north (though ferries and fords were also used). The bridge would be rebuilt in 1880, 1909, and 2018.

Until 1656, all of northern Medford was owned by Cradock, his heirs, or Edward Collins. Medford was governed as a “peculiar” or private plantation. As the land began to be divided among several people from different families, the new owners began to meet and make decisions locally and increasingly independently from the Charlestown town meeting. In 1674, a Board of Selectmen was elected; in 1684, the colonial legislature granted the ability to raise money independently; and in 1689, a representative to the legislature was chosen. The town got its own religious meeting room in 1690, and a secular meeting house in 1696.

In 1692, the town engaged its first ordained preacher, Rev. John Hancock Sr. During his time of service Rev. Hancock lived in Medford, serving until November 1693. One of his grandsons was John Hancock, who was a later notable figure of the American Revolutionary War and later elected as first and third governor of Massachusetts.

The land south of the Mystic River, present-day South Medford, was originally known as “Mistick Field”. It was transferred from Charlestown to Medford in 1754. This grant also included the “Charlestown woodlots” (the Medford part of the Middlesex Fells), and part of what was at the time Woburn (now Winchester). Other parts of Medford were transferred from Charlestown in 1811, Winchester in 1850 (“Upper Medford”), and Malden in 1879. Additional land was transferred to Medford from Malden (1817), Everett (1875), and Malden (1877) again.