On Saturday, October 17, four groups have each put something on the Arlington calendar: a cottage bakery, the Arlington Historical Society, the Friends of Robbins Farm Park and Arlington Recreation. Each one is listed on its own page. Put them side by side and they chain into one day, as long as you catch part of some of them. The tour ends at 1 p.m., the same hour Field Day begins. Arlingtoberfest runs until 6, so it can be the last stop.

Arlingtoberfest will probably get the biggest crowd. The 11 a.m. tour finishes at a burial site that went unmarked for nearly 250 years, until imaging work and a 2024 monument identified it. Everything else that Saturday fits around those two hours.

The day at a glance

Start on Mill Street, and pre-order by Wednesday

Redwood Bakery is a cottage bakery run by its owner, Sara. It takes custom orders and does local pop-ups instead of keeping a storefront, so you can only buy from it on certain days. October 17 is one of them. Redwood will be at The Mill Cafe at 14 Mill St. from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., or until it sells out. The cafe describes itself as community-focused and is open Tuesday through Saturday.

YourArlington's event listing says the menu includes pumpkin spice latte cinnamon rolls and cacio e pepe scones. The "or until it sells out" part matters, because the bakery takes pre-orders by email at [email protected] through Wednesday, October 14. If you miss this one, Redwood's events page lists another Mill Cafe date on November 7.

Going early helps the rest of the day too. The tour meets a short walk away in Arlington Center at 11, so coffee and a scone at 10 leave you plenty of time.

The 11 a.m. tour is the one to plan around

The Arlington Historical Society runs the Stones & Stories tour. It starts at Winfield Robbins Memorial Garden, 700 Massachusetts Ave., and takes about two hours. You need to register through the Eventbrite ticket page. Tickets cost $12.51 for Society members and $23.18 for nonmembers, fees included.

The listing covers two sites. The first is the Old Burying Ground, where the tour explains how this part of Menotomy grew up around its meetinghouse and burying ground. The second is the Whittemore-Robbins House, where guides talk about the people who lived there and the ghost stories attached to the house. One line in the description says the tour covers "what recent scientific discoveries have revealed about unmarked burials," along with the history of the people killed on April 19, 1775. That line is why this is the stop to plan around.

What the radar found

The Arlington Historical Society's background presentation counts about 40 British soldiers who died in Menotomy on April 19, 1775 and were buried in the Old Burying Ground. For centuries, no marker showed where they lay.

The same presentation includes a ground-penetrating radar study of the burying ground. It shows a large, pit-like disturbance in the soil that matches what a mass-burial trench is expected to look like on radar. The study also raises the possibility of two trenches next to each other. On the Society's Fallen Crown Soldiers page, the radar image is captioned "Ground-penetrating radargram, October 2022."

The Society's page also lists the soldiers known to be buried there, a list it credits to James Hollister and Simone Monteleone of Minuteman National Historical Park. The names cover men from the 4th, 10th, 18th, 23rd, 38th, 43rd, 47th and 52nd Regiments of Foot. The page then notes that 36 more men were killed whose names are still unknown.

What marks the spot now

YourArlington reported that a permanent monument made by Oak Grove Memorials was dedicated at the Old Burying Ground on September 7, 2024. The same report says the ceremony drew scores of residents and out-of-town guests, along with town officials and representatives of the British Consulate. His Majesty's 10th Regiment of Foot led the closing procession. YourArlington places the marker toward the back of the burying ground, just off Peg Spengler Way, at the spot where underground imaging found the unmarked mass grave.

Many people walk or drive past 700 Mass. Ave. every day without going to the back of the burying ground, and this tour takes you there.

At 1 p.m., go to Eastern Avenue

The tour should finish around 1, which is exactly when the Friends of Robbins Farm Park start their annual Field Day at 61 Eastern Ave. It runs until 4 p.m., with old-fashioned races, games, a scavenger hunt, a bounce house and seasonal refreshments.

The Friends have more riding on this date than usual. Their September 26 movie night, a Zootopia 2 screening, was canceled because of a forecast of heavy rain and high winds. When they announced the cancellation, the Friends pointed people to Field Day as their next event. The Friends' 2026 events schedule does not list a rain date for Field Day, so check it Saturday morning if the forecast looks bad.

Families with young kids will get the most out of this part of the day. If you came mostly for the history, this is a good time to have lunch.

Finish at Reservoir Beach, where Arlingtoberfest runs until 6

Arlington Recreation's second annual Arlingtoberfest runs from noon to 6 p.m. at Reservoir Beach on Lowell Street. The rain date is Sunday, October 18. Entry is free. Wristbands for the bounce house, food and drinks are sold on site. Arlington Brewing Company is pouring beer, and this year Woodman's of Essex and Augusta's Chicken on the Road are bringing food trucks. Licensed, leashed dogs are welcome, according to the town's event listing.

The setup is different from last year. YourArlington's listing for the first Arlingtoberfest in 2025 described live music, a children's area, and food and drink. The 2026 lineup names a live DJ and adds two named food trucks. Because the festival runs until 6, you can get there after Field Day ends at 4 and still have two hours of daylight there.

One more thing to see on the way: the Heights windows

If your route takes you along Mass. Ave. in Arlington Heights, look at the shop windows. The Arlington Heights Community Association and the Arlington Chamber of Commerce held their sixth annual Halloween window-painting event in late September. It covered more than 60 storefront windows at 25 Heights businesses, painted on September 26 with September 27 as the rain date. The Chamber's event page says the paintings will stay on display throughout October, so they will still be up on the 17th.

Doing all four in one day

Here is the order that wastes the least time:

1. 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Pick up your pre-order or take your chances at The Mill Cafe, 14 Mill St.
2. 11 a.m. to about 1 p.m. Stones & Stories tour, starting at 700 Mass. Ave. Ask to finish near the Fallen Crown Soldiers monument off Peg Spengler Way.
3. 1 to 4 p.m. Field Day at Robbins Farm Park, 61 Eastern Ave., or lunch if your group skips the kids' events.
4. 4 to 6 p.m. Arlingtoberfest at Reservoir Beach, Lowell St., before the food trucks pack up.

Arlingtoberfest is the only stop with a published rain date, Sunday, October 18. Redwood's next Mill Cafe pop-up is listed separately for November 7. The Historical Society tour is the only stop that needs a ticket, so book it first.

Sarah's background is in art and design. A morning at the Old Burying Ground and the Whittemore-Robbins House is a good reminder of how much history sits in Arlington's older buildings and grounds. If the tour gets you curious about the story behind your own older home, or about how to show that history well when it's time to sell, Sarah Shimoff would be glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.