Dudley was created by an act of the General Court passed on February 2, 1732, at the request of inhabitants living between Oxford and Woodstock who were remote from any place of public worship and petitioned to be erected into a separate township. On June 20, 1732, the inhabitants of the new town, named for the Dudley family, owners of large portions of the area, assembled on William Carter's property and held the first town meeting. The Pegan (Nipmuck) Indians owned five square miles, including part of this hilltop, and deeded a four-acre parcel for a meeting-house in return for convenient seating for worship. The first meeting-house was erected there in 1734, and a Congregational Church has remained on the site ever since. The Town Common became the heart of village life, serving communal uses such as militia drills, town events, and memorials, and the remaining small green still supports community activities while part of the former common can be seen on the Nichols College campus. The site includes later landmarks and memorials, including the second Congregational church built in 1824 and destroyed by fire in 1890, the present church built in 1890-1891 by Hezekiah Conant, a school building first erected in 1849 and later moved after the church fire, the Black Tavern built in 1804 as Healy's Inn on Center Road, and memorials such as the 1909 Soldiers Monument, the 1919 World War Memorial, and monuments honoring Dudley's founders and six Dudley men imprisoned at Andersonville during the Civil War.