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The History of Sherborn Dedicated to Anne Carr Shaughnessy, 1920 - 2005 The book The History of Sherborn is the companion to A Guide To Sherborn, also authored by Anne Carr Shaughnessy in commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the incorporation of the Town of Sherborn This digital version of The History of Sherborn is produced and made available with the permission of the publisher. Copies of this document may be made for personal use. This material may be used in academic works provided that the author and publisher are appropriately cited.
The following individuals were the principals involved in the digitization of this book:
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THE HISTORYOF SHERBORNANNE CARR SHAUGHNESSY
The 300th Anniversary Committee
Copyright (c) 300th Anniversary Committee, Sherborn, Mass., 1974 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
THE TERCENTENARY SEAL
* * * * * * * * 300th Anniversary Committee G. Farrington Fiske, Chairman
VII
John Hull, Mintmaster at Boston in 1652, and Treasurer of the Colony of Massachusetts, originated the Pine Tree Shilling. This was the only colony which presumed to coin metal into money and the date '1652' which appeared on the first money coined was the same date used on all coins struck for 30 years. Hull was allowed one shilling in every twenty which were minted, and when his daughter, Hannah, married Judge Samuel Sewell, her dowry was her weight in Pine Tree Shillings. Captain Hull owned much of what is now the center of Sherborn, and is traditionally considered to have influenced its being so-named to perpetuate here the name of his family's home town in England. Appropriately, his shilling was the model used in 1965, when Sherborn's Town Seal was redesigned. To commemorate the Town's 300th Anniversary a white pine was planted on the lower Green and dedicated as the Tercentenary Pine. VIII CONTENTS
IX
INTRODUCTION It is a difficult task to keep the unusual flavor of a town's history while condensing it into a short space. Mrs. Shaughnessy has succeeded in doing this in telling the story of a town that began its career fighting off Indian attacks in the seventeenth century and now is meeting the challenges of the twentieth century. During all these years, as Mrs. Shaughnessy brings out, Sherborn has solved its problems through the democratic methods of the Town Meeting, that way by which New Englanders reach effective community decisions by eventual common consent. Richard W. Hale, Jr. Archivist of the XI
PREFACE At what point to begin this story and at what point to end it, and by what scheme and by what standard of selection should people, places and events be included between these two points, constituted the basic, formidable problem which faced Anne C. Shaughnessy as she, uninitiated, assumed the responsibility of historian. The whole concept of this account is hers, and the writing, save for portions of certain special topics, is entirely hers. While painstaking efforts were made to assure completeness and accuracy, a few short flights of her imagination had to come to the rescue for the sake of expediency. It was only through hours of her laborious searching that several new facts and several little-known facts are presented in these pages. As we go to press we are unaware of any event of significance to Sherborn which is omitted; yet we do know of a number of events inconsequential to its history which are purposely not mentioned. In the case of a project of this magnitude and general interest, many individuals residents and non-residents offered assistance in a wide variety of ways, each according to his special skill or aptitude. Hours of typing, proofreading, some researching and writing, interviewing, procuring of books, documents and pictures, and doing art work all these activities were invaluable and fully appreciated. To single out certain contributors, whose names are listed on succeeding pages, for special praise, would run the risk of creating undeserved slights to others. However, each has been thanked in person or by letter. Suffice to say, without their collective efforts, the fruits of our labors would be less abundant. Special recognition is given to Tercentenary Committee members Faith K. Tiberio, Margaret P. Buntin and Charlotte R. Blaney who made singular contributions in the writing. Other collaborators whose offerings are an important segment of the volume are Joseph K. Blanchard, Sylvia J. Bruce, Seymour W. Carter, Virginia B. Connelly, Florence F. Cranshaw, Thomas B. Merritt, James E. O'Neil, Jr., Esther G. Parker, Stephan M. Petty, John Plimpton, Alvin 0. Ramsley, Brinton P. Roberts, Richard Saltonstall, Winthrop G. Smith, Eliot W. Taylor, Alvin C. Tyson, John M. Wood, Jr., and Leonard M. Wilson. Special recognition is given also to Committee member Edward W. Fischer who provided continuing help in the general design of the publications. XIII
For his professional advice on the technical composition of these volumes and for his expertise in guiding us through the subsequent maze of successive steps necessary in preparing them for publication, we express our deep appreciation to Henry B. Roberts who gave unstintingly of his time. His sincere and abiding interest and encouragement kept our hopes bright. G. Farrington Fiske, Chairman
Those who made significant contributions to the compiling of the history of Sherborn are: Mary F. Allison, John P. Babson, Grace C. Ball, Joseph Berthiaume, Helen Bothfeld, Ruth P. Bruen, Mildred W. Byrne, Mary G. Cannon, Marilyn D. Coining, Lawrence B. Connelly, Walter J. Connolly, Margaret D. Dearth, Margaret E. DeLue, Thomas J. Devitt, Bessie J. Dowse, Virginia M. Fiske, Jacob B. Flagg, Jr., Francis Grout, Robert D. Hale, Anne G. Hayes, Paul J. Heffron, Sr., Harold G. Hildreth, Charles R. Hoeft, Jr., Helen E. Homer, Thomas J. Homer, Dorothy Kayne, Mary C. Levesque, Burlen Mahn, Charles E. McCarthy, Mary C. McCarthy, Margaret McGill, Rebecca B. Monego, Harold A. Ossinger, John D. Paul, Sr., Marguerite M. Peltier, Charlotte Pettigrossi, Katharine S. Plimpton, J. Robert Shaughnessy, Mark M. Shaughnessy, George R. Sprague, Joseph W. Tiberio, Mary Whitney. XIV
AUTHOR'S NOTE The purpose of this work is to present an accurate history of the Town of Sherborn from an unbiased point of view. Realization is due in no small part to the gracious cooperation of the many people who shared their knowledge and afforded the opportunity to peruse old and valued papers. Histories of the Town written by Dr. Albert H. Blanchard for Middlesex County in the late 1800s were used in compiling the story following Sherborn's Incorporation. Town Positions is an essay to contemporize the history of the Town in its most fundamental facet government. Throughout the publication, Gregorian dating is used, rather than the old style of double dating, and a Bibliography is included in place of extensive footnotes. Anne Carr Shaughnessy XV
The jog "F
G" is herewith explained as an extra "half mile in breadth of the northmost angle to make up the quantity of six miles square, the amount which had been granted to the township in the document of Incorporation, October 21, 1674.
THE INDIANS OF THE SHERBORN AREA In the wilderness which was to become Sherborn, tribes of Indians lived their rude life in peace and plenty, contented with the products of the hunt and of the lakes and rivers. The Nipmuck tribe, less warlike than some of their neighbors, occupied this region and that to the westward. They heard, in 1621, of the arrival on the shores of Plymouth of a band of men with pale faces. In some way they communicated with them and this was the first inland tribe with which the English formed an acquaintance. They were independent of other tribes and powerful in numbers. Naturally peaceful, they prospered as long as they remained united and resisted the influence of the other tribes. When first known by the white people, the Nipmucks were governed by a squaw-sachem who resided near Wachusett Mountain and they possessed most of the present counties of Middlesex and Worcester, as well as more land to the north and west. In the year 1647 they were unable to agree concerning a new leader and divided into as many as five bands, each with a different chief, one of these bands settling in the southwest part of Sherborn. After this disunion of the great Nipmuck nation it lost its former power and prestige, and the divisions became subject to more powerful tribes. The band which settled in this locality came under the influence of Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoags, and were induced by his son and successor, King Philip, to unite with him in his disastrous war against the English. Their tribes were decimated in the warfare and after the death of Philip but few were left. Another tribe of Indians had settled about five miles to the northeast of the Nipmucks at the present site of South Natick, and were called the Natick or Praying Indians. They had been moved there by the Apostle John Eliot about 1650, for he felt that his venture to Christianize the savages could be successful only if he situated a distance from the thickly-settled Boston and its inherent distractions. The "tall and venerable old sachem" Waban, chief of the Indians of Nonantum, who had been converted to Christianity in 1646 by Eliot, moved his tribe here to help in the settlement of the first Christian Indian town in America. Waban was made Chairman of the Board of Selectmen and Justice of the Peace. Daniel Takawambpait, another Indian land owner in the area, became the first Indian minister in America and the successor to John Eliot as preacher to the Indians. 1
2 Sherborn
1679 Shearborn Granteth To
1679 Shearborn Granteth To
Indians of the Sherborn Area 3
4 Sherborn As the beautiful location on the banks of the Charles River chosen by Eliot as the one desirable place for his endeavor was territory already granted to Dedham by the General Court, a twelve-year controversy ensued culminating in the Court's granting to Dedham a tract four times as large as that taken from them. This 8,000 acres, which now comprises the Town of Deerfield, was chosen by a committee appointed by the Court to survey, and they found it the only available area to compare with that confiscated by Eliot. It was one of this tribe, John Sassamon, who warned of the impending war with King Philip, and was killed for this betrayal of their plans by Philip's followers. Heredity, however, proved the strongest factor in many of the Natick Indians who joined with King Philip in his warring until, under the then governor, Maj. Gen. John Leverett, all the Indians of Natick were ordered by an Act of the General Court deported to Deer Island in Boston Harbor for the duration. Those who returned when the conflict was over found the same desolation that was being experienced by their white brothers; their homes burned, their fields and orchards ravaged and their livestock destroyed. The exchange of land between Sherborn and these Natick Indians which had been under consideration prior to the King Philip War was again considered. The report of the committee chosen by the General Court was favorable to the wishes of the inhabitants of the two communities, and the Court approved the return. It is a fact generally overlooked, that Grants of Land by the Legislature were not a conveyance of the fee in the soil, or ownership, but only the right to buy the land of the native owners. Grants in Sherborn which were commenced as early as the year 1643 and continued at intervals for 30 years were always subject to the rights of the Indians, who received payment and gave deeds for all the land afterwards included in the township. The Indians shrewdly reserved the right of hunting, fishing and gathering wild fruits, expecting to utilize these rights under the protection of the new owners. They must also have realized that if taking possession under these deeds should involve the English in a war with other tribes who felt they owned these lands, the English would fight their common enemy. Articles of agreement for the exchange of lands were signed on April 16, 1679, with 4,000 acres going to Sherborn on its northeast boundary, and Sherborn giving the same amount of land lying towards Hopkinton, as well as "the full and just quantity of 200 bushels of Indian grain to be paid one-half in hand, or at demand,
Indians of the Sherborn Area 5 and the other half the last of March next ensuing." Signing for Natick were the above-mentioned Waban and Daniel Takawambpait as well as Pimbow, Thomas Tray, John Awonsamage, Sr., and Peter Ephraim. Peter Ephraim owned land in Sherborn on Peter's Hill, so named on that account, and the third article of this exchange agreement allowed him to "enjoy the land he hath broken up within that tract," and "to add thereunto so much more as may make the lot twelve acres, with an equal proportion of meadow; but to be under the government of the township of Sherborn, as the English are." The fourth article in this agreement is notable as it set aside 50 acres appropriated forever "to the use of a free school for teaching the English and Indian children there the English tongue and other sciences." A decade after King Philip's War, the Indian owners of what is now the Audubon sanctuary in South Natick, known as Broadmoor, offered their combined holdings to a Sherborn millwright, named Thomas Sawin, on the condition that he build them a gristmill there. With two deeds from the Indians dated in March 1685/6 conveying 40 and 50 acres respectively, and by virtue of other grants from the Indians and white planters, Sawin assembled his holdings and repaired there. He had already proved his competence as a millwright in the town of Sherborn, where he had built a sawmill and supplied timbers and boards for the first meeting house . This was probably the first gristmill that these or any Indians in New England had ever possessed, because traditionally grain was ground by the squaws using mortar and pestle. The grant issued by the General Court which permitted Thomas Sawin to purchase this property made it the first mill in America designed as primarily for the use and convenience of Indians. As Horace Mann observes, "white men could have their corn ground in the mill, but Indians had preference and any Indian could demand that the white man's corn should be taken from the hopper to give place to his." The mill stood near the present House and Barn at Broadmoor and "was of the most simple construction. It consisted of a horizontal wheel and a perpendicular shaft, on top of which the upper stone rested, and with which it was turned." This is what engineers refer to as a tub or Norse mill, widely used in medieval time and effective only in hilly areas where there are swift streams. Though Sawin Brook is but a trickle today, one account says "it was much more of a stream" in the 1680's. After the death of Daniel Takawambpait, the first Indian Minister, members of the tribe were still involved in the running
6 Sherborn of the township but, without the dynamism of John Eliot and those he had personally inspired, the characteristics of a "Town of the Indians" were gradually lost.
Falls on the site of the Praying
Indians' Gristmill
When the territory which now constitutes the pleasant town of Sherborn was one vast wilderness, the Nipmuck tribe of Indians, trod its forest paths and plied the canoe on its fair streams, the Charles on the east and the Sudbury on the west. Tradition shows that one of the bands of this tribe settled in the southwest part of Sherborn, and erected their "stannocks" or wigwams there; hence the name "Stannox" by which the southwest district was known. Grants of land by the General Court to individuals were commenced as early as 1643, and were continued at intervals for 30 years; but always subject to the rights of the Indians who received payment and gave deeds for all the land included in the township. Few if any of these grantees occupied their land. The first transfer to actual settlers of land "lying in the woods on the west side of the Charles River, three miles from Natick," was made May 8, 1652. Immediately after, Nicholas Wood and Thomas Holbrook took possession and commenced their labors. They were soon followed by Henry Layland, Benjamin Bullard, George Fairbank, John Hill, Thomas Breck and Daniel Morse. These persons were men of substance, determined character and not easily discouraged, as the events proved. It is generally conceded that Nicholas Wood was the first settler. He was an enterprising man and became one of the foremost in the new colony, signing the first petition for the incorporation of the town and possessed of large property for the times. He erected his house on a rock (22 rods north of 46 Forest Street, but not standing). These first residents settled in the south and southeast parts of Sherborn, which then included a portion of the present eastern part of Medway. The Indian name for the locality was Boggestow; it is perpetuated in the name of a meadow, pond and brook. Thomas Holbrook built his first house on his share of the grant near Death's Bridge (260 South Main Street) and planted an extensive orchard there. So liberal was he in the distribution of its fruit that his buildings were secured from the torch of the Indian enemy while others near him were laid in ashes. Further purchases of land and a Grant from the government made him possessor of the entire tract between the first purchase and the river. In 1666 he deeded eighty acres of his first purchase to his brother-in-law, Henry Layland or Leland, who had already occupied it for twelve years. He was the son of Hopestill Leland, the common ancestor 7
The only Grant given to a Sherborn Settler by the General Court, 1659. Thomas Holbrook petitioned the General Court humbly desiring the Court to grant him a small Corner of land, lying on the North side of Charles River and adjoining a parcel of land he lately had purchased there. The Court Granted his request so as the Land desired exceed not 50 Acres nor Interfere with any former Grant nor the Indian Plantation. When he presented to the Court, in 1672, his platt for confirmation of the said Grant, he petitioned for the remaining of the Country's land (461/2 acres), "that he might enjoy the whole tract though it be more then strickly his grant was: either upon purchase by resonable sattisfaction if the Court in there fancy see not meet to grant it him ffrely;... The land above mentioned is very roky uneven Land and yeld very litle wood or timber or feed for catle... " The Court confirmed the First Grant of 50 acres and also the 461/2 acres of Country land being uneven land, but they specified that said Holbrook agree for the price with Deacon Parkes and Mr. Pierpoynt for the use of the Treasury.
10 Sherborn of all the New England Lelands, who came from England about 1624 and settled first at Weymouth. He passed his last days with his children at Boggestow and died there in 1655, at the age of 75, one of the oldest men who had then settled in New England.
Although living remote from Medfield and not included within its bounds, the Boggestow people obtained privileges from the Medfield town fathers and for some 25 years births and deaths in their families were there recorded. But at length, as the number of settlers increased, the farms growing into better condition, a petition signed by 14 inhabitants was presented to the General Court on May 7, 1662, praying for "liberty to be a Towne of ourselves with such others as may be admitted to our Society hereafter." The General Court appointed a committee "to view the place and return their apprehensions." The result appears to have been unfavorable as nothing more is found concerning the petition. Twenty-two years after the arrival of the first pioneers, the number of families had grown to 20, and the population to about 108. Captain Joseph Morse had lately removed into the colony and married Mehetabel, a daughter of Nicholas Wood and the first Anglo-American child born here (July 22, 1655), and they had built their house upon a part of her father's farm (46 Forest Street).
Birth of a Town 11 In 1674, a second petition, of which Capt. Morse was the first signer, and probably the framer, was presented to the General Court on October 7. The petition stated that "amongst other difficultyes" they "have not found it our least to goe to meeting on the Lord's day unto Meadefeild, by reason not only of the difficulty in passing over the water betwext, in winter seasons & time of floods, which sometimes prooves hazardous to health & life." It asks for a tract of land, six miles square and also for the liberty to purchase of the Natick Indians certain other parcels of land. On October 21st the Court granted the petition: "and the name of the town to be called Sherborne." This name by usage was gradually changed to Sherburne by which the town was known for more than a century, and no more beautiful name could have been adopted. But in 1852 another petition was presented to the General Court to alter that name to "Sherborn," from a mistaken idea that such was the spelling of the name of the original town in England. The inhabitants first assembled on January 4, 1675, 14 persons being present; and the records of the town then commence. A committee was chosen to view the land granted for the township and lay out the same, and to treat with the Natick Indians for the desired exchange of land to make their town more compact. The second meeting on March 8th was chiefly devoted to this exchange of land. They had fairly compensated the Indians for the land already possessed, and had received from them a deed of territory. In the language of that day they had "extinguished the Indian title." But tills territory was very irregular in form, extending in one direction from the Charles to the Sudbury River, and in the other from the Natick line to Hopkinton and Bellingham, with portions of previous grants taken out. Owing to interruptions which will soon appear, it was April, 1679, before the exchange with Natick of 4,000 acres of land for the same number of acres near Hopkinton was completed. These negotiations had been suspended because of the horrors of an Indian war. At this time Philip, the great sachem of the Wampanoags, was on the warpath and he publicly stated on a paper which he posted on the bridge between Medfield and Boggestow, "will war this 21 years if you will. The Indians lose nothing but their lives. You must lose your fair houses and cattle." His bold threat did not give the settlers much hope for the future, although, as an early historian, Hubbard, quaintly observes, Philip fell short of this time by more than 19 years. But of his early death, effected by a party under Captain Church, the colonists could not foresee.
12 Sherborn
Birth of a Town 13 As soon as they heard that the Indians under Philip were moving in this direction, they repaired to their garrisoned houses, two of which were erected at that time. Many remained there for a long time, and there some of their children were born. One of these garrisons was the house of Daniel Morse, Sr., near the present road from Sherborn to Dover, and not far from the Charles River. It is believed that the only persons who sought refuge here belonged to the family of Mr. Morse, including his sons and daughters and their families, not a small number, however, as he had nine children and some grandchildren at the time of Philip's War. The second garrison house was on the farm of Benjamin Bullard, close to the present boundary line between Sherborn and Medway (now Millis) near the Charles River. It was situated on the north shore of Boggestow or South Pond which lies between the road and the river on a bank having the extensive "Broad Meadows" to the east and northwest. The intervening strip of land had been burned over so as to afford an uninterrupted view of the country and to cut off all shelter for the lurking foe. It was built in a superior manner, a spacious and regular fortress nearly 70 feet long and two stories high, all of faced stone brought from a quarry about a mile distant, and laid in clay mortar, with a row of portholes on all sides. The second story was set apart for the women and children with a separate room for the sick. In case of any suspicion or alarm of an invasion by the red men, whether by day or night, all the families adjacent repaired and lived there. This garrison was attacked on February 21, 1676, by the Indians after they had burned Medfield. It withstood well the assaults of the enemy, some of whom were picked off by shots fired through the admirably arranged loopholes. Finding their efforts vain, the Indians next attempted to burn the building by pushing a cart of burning flax down the declivity above it. Destruction now seemed imminent; but fortunately the progress of the cart was arrested by a rock, and the lives of the garrison saved. Some two months later the Indians again attacked the fort, but on this occasion our ancestors sallied forth and punished them so severely that "they never dared to show their faces there afterwards." On the day of the first attack on Bullard's garrison, Jonathan, the son of the first settler Nicholas Wood, was killed by the Indians on the river bank; and his brother Eleazer fell at his side beneath the tomahawk, and was left for dead. He recovered but was ever afterwards depressed in mind and peculiar. Jonathan's widow died the next day in the fortress after giving birth to their child. Silence,
14 Sherborn
Birth of a Town 15 who later married Thomas Holbrook, son of another original settler. They settled on land inherited from her father (69 Forest Street), where her descendant, Jonathan Holbrook, later resided near his cider mills. Besides the losses already mentioned, the house of Thomas Eames in the north of town, now part of Framingham, was burned during his absence, his wife and some of his children murdered by the Indians. Others of his children were taken into captivity, one daughter escaping and making her way back to the settlement, to later marry Abraham Cozzens and settle in West Sherborn. After the death of Philip in August of 1676, the Indians continued to make hostile demonstrations, but their power was broken; and early the next year the colonists began to resume their usual occupations. Sherborn again took up negotiations with the Natick Indians and an agreement was signed in April, 1679, which completed the exchange of lands as before mentioned. Means for the transaction of public business being established, a social compact was adopted and five men chosen as Selectmen with one of their number to be town clerk and schoolmaster. The inhabitants next turned their attention more fully to the preparations for stated public worship. Steps had previously been taken in selecting a location for a meetinghouse and a lot of land staked out. This spot was unsatisfactory to many of the people and after much discussion it was finally removed to the site of the present First Parish Church, which consequently became the center of the town. So it has remained, and about it are clustered other public buildings. But it was only after much controversy and an appeal to the General Court that the business was settled. The town dutifully submitted to being placed under the guardianship of a committee "to order and governe the prudentialls of said towne for three years," and the differences were gradually adjusted. The church was finished in 1685, a second one replacing it in 1726, which was enlarged in 1770 by inserting 20 feet between the separated halves of the building. Edward West was accustomed to act as a lay preacher when public worship was held at the home of Captain Joseph Morse in the south part of the town (46 Forest Street). This house was used as the meeting place of the settlers until their church was completed, perhaps because it was central and of great size. At a later date in 1694, West was appointed the school-master of the town. Mr. Daniel Gookin, a graduate of Harvard College, was ordained as pastor on March 26, 1685. He had been assistant to Apostle
Birth of a Town 17 Eliot in the Indian mission at Natick and continued his work among the Indians through his life. A man of more than common ability, he died after 34 years in Sherborn. The extensive territory of the town made it sometimes difficult for those near its border to attend services regularly. As the number of inhabitants in these localities increased, a spirit of uneasiness began to appear, and also a desire to form themselves into new towns. The older townsmen naturally desired to increase rather than diminish their population, and also to retain all the taxpayers possible. When, therefore, 17 families residing on "Sherburne Rowe" in the north part of the town, made propositions for separation in order that they might join the inhabitants of "Framingham plantations," there was lengthy controversy. The bounds of Sherborn in that direction appear not to have been well defined, and when Framingham was incorporated in 1700, the rights of Sherborn were reserved. The matter was finally settled June 16, 1710, by the General Court which annexed the 17 families permanently to Framingham and made to Sherborn, as an equivalent for the loss, a grant of 4,000 acres of land west of Mendon. This grant was first known as New Sherborn and incorporated as the town of Douglas in 1786. We have not space to write further of the memorable controversy, which excited deep feeling for many years and stirred the whole community to its foundation. Soon the inhabitants "who are dwellers on ye West side of Dopping Brook" had increased in number and were thirsting for religious privileges of their own, for their farms were situated a long distance from the church, but this matter appears to have been settled amicably. They made representations of their difficulties in the town meetings. The town was disposed to accommodate their distant brethren and passed a vote (March 6, 1723) to build a meetinghouse in a more central location. It was later decided that this would not meet the objections: "the Form and situation of the Town is so ill convenient that one meeting-house Cannot be so placed as to Suit the Whole Town." It was then voted to erect the new meetinghouse on the old spot and, on motion of some of the principal western inhabitants, it was also voted to remit to the same their portion of the £. 160 collected for the building fund, towards the time when they should build a meetinghouse of their own. On December 3, 1724, the General Court incorporated this western part as a town under the name of Holliston. In 1754 the year was remarkable for the invasion of an uncommon disease, called in Sherborn the 'Memorable Mortality,' and
18 Sherborn
in Holliston the 'Great Sickness.' Nearly 30 lives were lost in Sherborn by its ravages, a serious and alarming inroad on its small population. In his History of Holliston, Morse describes the symptoms of this terrible scourge which took the lives of 53 in that town and, from present-day diagnosis, indications are that it was diphtheria. The French and Indian War, 1755 to 1763, did not seriously affect this colony, though some 16 Sherborn men served in these campaigns. These men were chosen from a Trained Band which was destined to later serve as the nucleus for Sherborn's Minute Men.
Memorable Mortality Stone, 1754
The time of greatest trial to the colonists as well as to the whole country came with the War of the Revolution. Great as was their attachment to the mother country, still the exactions of the home government were becoming too onerous to be borne. The people of the colonies began seriously to consider the necessity of throwing off the yoke. Sherborn was ready to do its part in contributing men and means to support the great struggle for what it deemed to be just and right. As early as 1774, a committee of correspondence was chosen, committees to attend the county conferences at Concord and Cambridge, and to purchase a field piece. Three cannon, procured by the latter committee instead of a six-pounder, were accepted by the town. Many other votes were afterwards passed, showing that the people were animated to a high degree with the spirit which finally achieved the independence of the colonies. In 1776 it was voted to extend relief to the poor of Boston, then besieged, and to find places for them to live. Also a company of Minutemen was raised, and £& granted to provide the ammunition for the cannon. As soon as news reached this town of the conflict at Lexington on April 19, 1775, the Minutemen proved themselves worthy of their title by marching to meet the assailants, but the distance was so great, and the route of the enemy so uncertain, that they had not the satisfaction of meeting and helping to chastise them. They, however, furnished their quota in besieging Boston, and displayed their heroism in the battles of Bunker Hill, West Point, Ticonderoga, White Plains, and Brandywine. Seven sons of Mr. Samuel Clark enlisted and these and the names of all are recorded in the archives of the State. In May, 1776, the town voted that if Congress decided to declare the colonies independent of Great Britain, the people would, with their lives and fortunes, endeavor to support them in that measure, and their representative was instructed to act accordingly. When the question of the adoption of the Federal constitution arose, Sherborn again sent representative Daniel Whitney to the convention held in Boston in 1788, with general instructions, but also with full confidence in his judgment to act for the right. And that honorable member was one of the majority who voted in favor of this great charter of our freedom. 19
20 Sherborn
Birth of a Nation 21
Sherborn was a prominent colonial gun-making center of the colonies and a training ground for many of the leading artisans. Thomas Holbrook, a Sherborn Selectman who was born in 1748, was the finest gunsmith of his time and made excellent long rifles. (Top) Pictured is one of his fowling pieces, signed on the lock plate and made with handling, balance and quality of the highest caliber. (Center) Lemuel Leland was one of those who apprenticed to Holbrook and the guns from his shop on Indian Brook are also greatly sought after. This is one of his fine, accurate 60-caliber rifles with flintlock action, and a total length of 55 and 7/8 inches. (Lower) The three Pratt brothers, Alvan, Henry, Jr., and Nathaniel, who were born here in the 1780s, were among those who apprenticed to Holbrook and Leland before going into business elsewhere. This silver mounted and engraved pistol is the work of Alvan Other Sherborn names noted in this craft are William and Henry Leland, Moses Babcock, and John Mason, Jr., who, though born across the river in Medfield, married Betsey Ware of Sherborn and, after his apprenticeship to Holbrook, became noted in Shrewsbury.
From the Frank Klay Collection 22 Sherborn When President George Washington made his tour through New England in 1789, he records in his diary of November 6th that he left Watertown early in the morning, stopping in Sherborn for breakfast at Captain Samuel Sanger's Tavern (site of 3-5 North Main Street). Though the tavern is no longer standing, part of the tea set used on that memorable occasion is preserved to this day in Sherborn by a Sanger descendant. President Washington continued on his way and is said to have alighted once again in Sherborn at the home of Asa Sanger (70 Washington Street) where Asa, the younger brother of Captain Sam, was mending his stone wall. The two patriots chatted for a time. Then Asa saw his President safely into the waiting coach and on his way. Washington also noted of this trip, "The roads in every part of this State are amazingly crooked, to suit the convenience of every man's fields... The clouds of the morning vanished before the meridian sun, and the afternoon was bright and pleasant." In 1807, when our national honor and our authority on the high seas were invaded, Sherborn accepted her share of the work, and made preparations as soon as a conflict was threatened, and before hostilities had commenced. In 1814, when an actual call for men was expected, allowances were granted to them, and some soldiers from the town served in the forts in Boston harbor. In February, 1830, a portion of the inhabitants desired a form of worship different from that then prevailing, wishing to retain the forms of government and belief of the original Puritan church of 1685. They requested of the proper authority that "a warrant may be issued, in due form of law, for the purpose of forming a second religious Congregational Society in said town." They immediately organized, and during the same year erected a meetinghouse not far from that of the First Parish, which was dedicated on November 4, 1830. In 1875, in accordance with a petition, the name of the second parish was fixed by the legislature, and it was then known as the Pilgrim Church and Society of Sherborn. The First Parish also felt the need of a new edifice, as the old one had been in use for more than a century. And during the same year, 1830, they proceeded to build a meetinghouse nearly on the same spot that had always been occupied for that purpose, solemnly dedicating their new church to the service of God on the 29th of December. In the year 1847, a very large gathering of the Leland family was held, descendants of Henry Layland, one of the earliest settlers of Sherborn, and who then comprised a large proportion of its
Birth of a Nation 23 population. A mammoth tent was required to contain all who desired to attend this highly interesting occasion. A granite monument to their common ancestor, suitably inscribed, was dedicated to his memory by his grateful descendants. It stands on a small plot of land purchased for it at the north side of the Church Common. From the earliest times Sherborn has set apart portions of land as cemeteries. In general, these lots were bare and uninviting spots, as was often the case in New England towns. The subject of a more modern rural cemetery was seriously considered and urged by some of the people. A location was judiciously chosen on Pine Hill near. the center of town, and on May 19, 1852, the Pine Hill Cemetery was consecrated with suitable exercises, and thenceforth cared for by the private association which had formed to found it, until 1888 when the town assumed control of and maintained all cemeteries within its bounds. For many years there had been a library in the town owned by an association of individuals, and at a later date an agricultural
24 Sherborn library. After the passage of an act by the Legislature allowing towns to establish libraries, the town at its regular Town Meeting held on March 5, 1860, voted for the establishment of a public library and made an appropriation for it. Some of the collections of the private libraries were donated at this time and the library was opened the following June. This small town deserves credit for its early adoption of the state law. In the year 1859, "The Sherborn Widows' and Orphans' Benevolent Society" was founded with 88 people attending its first meeting. Calvin P. Sanger, its principal benefactor, made a handsome donation of S4.000 and, actively involved in its organization, made the provision in the Constitution that "no preference shall be given to the applicant for this charity by reason of his or her religious belief." It was organized under a General Law of the Commonwealth and has greatly benefited many in need. The year 1861 is the beginning of an era long to be remembered. Civil war was upon us with all its trials and sacrifices. The President issued his proclamation for troops, and each state and town was required to furnish its quota of men. Sherborn can turn with just pride to her honorable record of those days. In addition to the common school provided in the town, there has usually been a school for instruction in advanced classics kept by different able men. In 1858, the proposition of the executors of the will of Thomas Dowse to convey to the town a gift in trust for the support of a high school was received with great satisfaction and gratitude. The school's first term commenced March 14, 1859, and for 15 years successfully furnished education in the higher studies and afforded many examples of faithful teaching and earnest study. In the year 1870, the executors of the will of Martha Sawin of Natick, notified the town that she had bequeathed a large sum of money for the purpose of founding and supporting an academy for instruction in the advanced branches of learning. A town meeting called for the purpose December 19, 1870, voted to accept the bequest and trustees were chosen to take charge of the estate. Dedication exercises were held on September 10, 1874, for Sawin Academy which was an ornament to the town with its two stories topped by a mansard roof and enclosing at the eastern corner an octagon tower 90 feet in height, built of brick with granite trimmings. During the years following the close of the Civil War, the number of convicts in Massachusetts was steadily increasing and prisons
Birth of a Nation 25
were overcrowded. A few prominent people petitioned the Legislature in 1870 for a separate place of confinement for women, with a view to their reformation. In the same year Rev. Edmund Dowse of Sherborn, then a member of the Senate and chairman of the Committee on Prisons, presented a bill to "provide separate prisons for women" which became law on June 15 of that year. The experiment was first tried for two years in a separate portion of the county jail at Greenfield, but the authorities felt they needed an institution devoted wholly to this purpose. Finally a spot was chosen in this town, near its northern boundary next to the village of South Framingham, a great railroad center. Sufficient quiet and seclusion was thus secured and at the same time easy access to a railroad station from which diverge lines to all those portions of the state which furnish the largest number of prisoners to such an institution. A new bill was passed, and the buildings were ready for occupancy in 1877, each three stories in height and three in number, besides several houses for the use of officers and employees.
Blank Page To many peoples, a town means nothing more than a cluster of houses, but to us in New England, the town was in the beginning, as it is now, the primary organization, sovereign in itself. The colonists had no sooner formed a settlement than they organized themselves into a town, an independent municipality in which 'every citizen had a voice and a vote.' It is remarkable and interesting to see how in the little municipalities of New England, all the rights of citizenship were cherished, and how silently and unostentatiously all the elements of a free state were fixed and developed. Their citizens in town meeting had the control of all matters relating to their civil and criminal jurisdiction. In the New England colonies the towns were combined in counties long after their establishment as towns so that the county here was a collection of towns, rather than the town a subdivision of a county. This system of town organization is maintained throughout New England to the present day, constituting one of the most interesting features of the civil polity of this section of our country. Says Palfrey in his History of New England: "With something of the same propriety with which the nation may be said to be a confederacy of republics called states, each New England state may be described as a confederacy of minor republics called towns." Neither in New York with its great landed properties, at first held and occupied by a kind of feudal tenure and afterwards with its counties nor in the western states where the town survey carries with it no local political authority nor in the south, where the county organization is the one which governs local matter can be found that form of self-government which gives the New England towns their individuality, and which has enabled them to enroll their names on the brightest pages of American history. How they hurled defiance at the oppressor and sprang up, an army of defiant communities, each one feeling its responsibility and ready and anxious to assume it! Would you study the valor of your country in its early days, go to the town records of New England. Would you learn where the leaders and statesmen were taught their lesson of independence and national spirit, read the recorded resolves of the New England towns. Part of the answer to 'What is a New England Town?' was the theme of the oration given by the Honorable George B. Loring of Salem, one of the renowned speakers of the day, on the occasion 27
28 Sherborn
Farm Lake at Amariah Leland's 1870 The Heritage 29 of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town of Sherborn. We commence the history of our third hundred years with thankful pride that in 1974 we start living the fourth hundred years still fostering that same form of self-government and still resolving for freedom in open town meeting. On that October 21st in 1874, "The morning was cloudy, and a slight shower fell, which laid the dust. The afternoon was mild and pleasant, with a balmy and delicious atmosphere. The exercises were held in the Town House, which was decorated with flags, bunting and flowers, giving to it a beautiful appearance. The Hall was filled to overflowing. The entire program excited the deepest interest." The Centennial Anniversary of American Independence, two years later, was held on the fourth of July and in Sherborn the 'Spirit of '76' was alive and eager to celebrate. What better way than at a picnic for the whole town at one of the groves on Farm Lake during the day, followed by a literary program at the Town House in the evening? It was a gala time! Clovernook Grove, which Caleb Southwick owned on Farm Lake, was the spot chosen and everyone trooped over for the day. Besides the rowboats, which the young men could hire to show off their prowess, there were sailboats which the valiant rented with skipper if they could convince their lady friend that it was a fun way to spend a half hour. Best of all for the venturesome and timid alike were the steam launches, plying the waters on a sightseeing tour for only five cents. They were neat little steamboats looking much like a small version of the ferries which a hundred years later would still cater to tourists in Marblehead Harbor. The steam whistle announced the departure of each trip and with much ado the 'Atlanta' with its 25 passengers would be off across the Lake, passing by the other two picnic areas, Camp Turtle and Davis Grove. The island, like all of the shore land on the lake, was then privately owned and another point of interest. There were games and contests which caused great competition until the field was dotted with blankets spread for lunch. Clovernook Grove, at its pavilion, offered candy, popcorn, ice-cream and tonic for sale, but people brought their own basket lunches to eat in groups upon the grass or at the tables and benches set among the trees. The pavilion was sizable and wonderful dances were held there with well-known orchestras providing the music all through the season. The delicious tonic was brought from Millis, where a small company was trying to get started
Clicquot Ginger-
30 Sherborn ale Co. The Baltimore firm who made the bottles for this new carbonated tonic often sent a salesman to Millis, and he no doubt visited their good account at Clovernook Grove King C. Gillette, who would later start the internationally known company bearing his name. After a wonderful day, those who had chores to do left for home. The rest soon started down Trinity Road (Farm) in their democrats, barges for the large groups, collapsible top buggies, carryalls and surreys with the fringe on top, heading for the Town House. It was decorated with flags and bunting for the occasion and the whole evening was an expression of the patriotism which all felt and were proud to display. The Declaration of Independence was read, addresses were given by various citizens and music was furnished by the Sherborn Musical Association, which had lately performed so well at the Peace Jubilees in Boston. In 1895, the Town would purchase land on Farm Pond for gravel and park purposes. Up to this time the Town had controlled 'ways' to the pond for fishermen, and boat landings, and had posted each with ever-changing rules regarding fishing, and in 1878 had even appointed a constable to enforce the rules. It was understandable that, since the pond had been stocked with black bass in 1873 and with landlocked salmon in 1878, it was desirable to keep the
The Heritage 31 fishing for Sherborn people only, and the Town Meeting so voted in 1883. Although the vote had been tempered with the granting of permits to non-resident land-owners, wise heads realized that this selective limiting of the use of a body of water of this size, even though it lay within the town bounds, could cause trouble, so they bent their efforts to equalizing the rules for town and non-town residents of the Commonwealth. In 1893 the days of the last steamer on Farm Lake were over. The Framingham Tribune carried the front-page story.
Mr. Eames had bought the boiler and engines from the "Atlanta" and later used them for heating purposes and for furnishing power for sawing wood and grinding apples. He promised, however, that the whistle would blow at his place on the fourth of July at seven in the morning, at noon, at six in the evening and at midnight every year! Many would tell their Sherborn grandchildren in years to come that they had 'done their courtin' on the Farm Lake steamers. The Town Fathers, at the beginning of our most recent century, decided that they would hold Selectmen's Meetings regularly at the refurbished Town House. Town business had so increased that it would no longer suffice to call a meeting when some question occurred. The Selectmen were looked upon as truly the Fathers of the Town and the respect which they commanded brought before them all manner of litigation of grave importance to those involved. Perhaps a good illustration of the esteem in which they were held is the recorded story of what occurred one day in the late 1800s, when the usual group at
Clark's Store in the center of town was awaiting the arrival of the mail carrier with the Boston papers, the men smoking their five-cent Pippins. When they scanned the headline in the Herald, "Battle Ship Maine Sunk in Havana Harbor," Mr. Wright thundered, "It's war! War with Spain the devils have sunk our best ship!" One of the ladies present spoke up sternly, "What's struck all you men, land sakes! Just tell the Selectmen. What do we elect Selectmen for anyway?" The men elected
32 Sherborn
earned this respect for they acted as fatherly statesmen, generating harmony and jealously guarding the best interests of the town and its people. At the Town Meeting of 1876 they proposed to put the Fire Department on a more businesslike basis and money was voted to purchase "six ladders, twelve buckets and six firemen's axes for use of the town in case of fire." Up to this time each man had provided what he could. Sherborn was determined to keep her firefighters right up to snuff and in 1896, when the new chemical extinguishers were made available, she quickly put out cash for a whole dozen of them, too. The Selectmen were directly responsible for the care of our roads since, in 1875, the Town had revoked its acceptance of a Road Commissioner. They had voted for such a position the previous Town Meeting, but apparently, upon thinking it over, had decided that the Selectmen were doing a great job and certainly
The Heritage 33 didn't need someone to tell them how it should be done. These were lean years for all and the Selectmen swelled the numbers of those who worked on our roads with townspeople who had difficulty raising money to pay their taxes and this was 55 years before the WPA. The Natick Bulletin of this era seemed to think the Selectmen were to be commended, too, for they said, "It is a well-known fact admitted by all their neighbors, that Sherborn is the banner town for good roads and pleasant drives." The town took steps to protect this natural beauty by accepting the Statute regarding shade trees in 1884 and purchasing and planting shade trees where they felt they were most needed the next year. In 1885 they also passed a law at Town Meeting reading that "No advertising be allowed on trees, fences, or buildings in town," and authorized the Selectmen to enforce it. To keep these roads in tip-top condition required innumerable wagonloads of gravel, used to fill in potholes and washouts, and the Town from time to time purchased or leased pits or gravel banks in town. Only two of these old unpaved roads would be left to be enjoyed by the generation celebrating the third hundred years anniversary. Walking down Rockwood Street or Green Lane would offer a unique experience to Sherborn people in the 1970s. The Town was kept busy building new roads during the 1880s in the fast growing area nearest the town of Framingham, and the rest of the town was giving some serious thought to the situation. Bridges were a concern to the Town, for the Charles River served as the boundary on her eastern border, and Beaver Brook on her northwestern border. In 1884, she constructed a bridge with the town of Framingham over Beaver Brook and two years later voted to build a new truss bridge with Dover over the Charles River. The old Death Bridge connecting Sherborn to Medfield had to be kept in repair. The care of the roads really was taking a great deal of time to supervise, and in 1889 the Selectmen appointed a Surveyor of Streets. For a time in the 1900s this was an elective position but it proved to be a better plan for the Selectmen to keep this responsibility through an appointed department-head, and the Town so voted. The cost of road work was quite an item in the Town budget even then, and though a highway tax was allocated on a percentage of tax levied, the Town considered, in 1897, taxing bicycles to help pay for the care of the roads. However, the meeting closed without taking a vote on this article. Sherborn widened the road (Forest
34 Sherborn Street) near the Holbrook Cider Mills in 1891, for business at the mills had increased so that the road was too narrow to handle the large numbers of wagons using it. The Holbrook brothers gladly gave a deed to the Town for the necessary land. When the Old Colony Railroad Company, in 1882, purchased the line that was servicing Sherborn, the Mansfield and Framingham Railroad, it also acquired the railroad from Mansfield to New Bedford as well as the one from South Framingham to Fitchburg, all of which became its Northern Division. This constituted a continuous line from Fitchburg to New Bedford, where connection was made with steamboats for Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, and at Fall River with boats for New York City. It wasn't only the freight trains which Sherborn utilized, for the passenger service to Framingham with good connections for Boston was unbelievable by today's
standards and the cost was minimal. Though the 'Sherborn Depot' was in the center of town with Henry Bullard and then Alfred Carter as Stationmasters, there was a South Sherborn station on Forest Street, as well as one in Southwest Sherborn on Whitney Street. These were great meeting places for the townspeople, as the workers at Dennison's or office workers in Boston were met by their families with carriages or farm wagons.
The Heritage 35
At the Main Street and Farm Road crossings were the Flagmen's one-room shanties sitting next to the track, complete with pot-bellied stove and a couple of comfortable chairs, for there was a bit of time for chatting. The tool of the Keeper's trade was a stout stick with a ball top and a great red flag to warn of the many scheduled passenger trains, which everyone knew about anyway, and the numerous unscheduled freight trains. There wasn't much road traffic, to be sure, but these men boasted a fine record. In 1887 a Flagman was voted for the South Sherborn Station as well. Henry Coolidge Goulding, who was responsible for the Farm Road crossing for many years, was fortunate in living close enough to his job (11 Farm Road) that one of his children could run down the hill with a good hot lunch for him on the cold winter days. Trains helped make the great Peace Festivals such a success in 1869 and 1872 at Copley Square in Boston, by bringing more than 50,000 people from all over the Commonwealth. Everyone in Sherborn who could get away went to hear their own 'Musical Association' perform. On another great occasion our line was most heavily taxed. That was the day that President Grant visited Concord for their celebration
crowds were so great and the trains departing
36 Sherborn Sherborn Depot so crowded that several fellows traveled on the tops of the railroad cars rather than be left at home! Sherborn people did think it would be more convenient to have a direct line to Boston, and in September of 1892 they circulated a petition in favor of this, evidently trying to convince the Old Colony officials to make such a connection. It was noted in a newspaper article that everybody had signed the petition and "it would surely be built," but that wasn't to be the case. Her people would continue to 'make connections' at Framingham as long as the passenger service was in operation. Sherborn's swales and bogs provided ideal conditions for growing cranberries and several farmers accumulated good sums of money from harvesting them. A man could rake from one to two barrels a day. The wagonloads were dumped on the floors of the 'cranberry houses,' subsequently barreled and sold for $28.00 per barrel. The farmers in town averaged about a hundred barrels a season and these were shipped throughout New England. As early as 1870 there were eight farmers in town who were taxed on their 'cranberry meadows' and 'cranberry houses.' Albert P. Ware, the last of his family to reside in the old homestead at 102 South Main Street, which included the eastern part of the Sewell meadow, teamed up with the Grouts, whose homestead lands at 42 Washington Street covered the western half of Sewell's meadow. In 1830, the historian Biglow had written of the very palatable sauce converted from the cranberries of that particular meadow. Albert's family had constructed a special building for storing the cranberries, but the Grouts at the time owned the Captain Sam Sanger House (60 Washington Street) and, as it was vacant, they used this to spread their berries in all the rooms. Here the sorting was done, quite generally by the women and children. The cranberry harvest was an important crop for the successful Sherborn farmer, and freight cars passing through the center of town made shipment expedient and reasonable. Good Sherborn milk was shipped from town in the same way. The farmers carted their huge cans by wagon to one of the three stations in town, some making use of the Holliston station just over the town line on Washington Street. Cans that didn't make the early morning milk train were refrigerated by being hung deep in the large spring-fed wells, such as the one still in use at 27 Hollis Street. Two hundred cans arrived daily at the station in the center of town and the railroad hired a gang of men to prepare a new building to be used as a milk shed. The Heritage 37 Sherborn's orchards are unsurpassed in beauty in their spring flowering and in the fruit which they produce. From the time that the first Sherborn fruit trees were planted by Thomas Holbrook on his grant near the Charles River, every farm had its orchard and many had large ones, so that it was common practice to couple 'orchard and tillage' when listing a man's holdings. In 1750, the Porter Apple was produced on the farm belonging to Rev. Samuel Porter, a minister of the First Church, who lived in a small house where 8 Washington was later built. The Porter was described by William Kenrick in his book, American Orchardist, printed in 1846, as a "fruit above medium size, light yellow with a pale blush next to the sun, its flavor sprightly and pleasant. A popular fruit in the Boston Market and very beautiful." In 1973, the Porter Apple Tree would be one of those planted at the Old Sturbridge Village orchard which would include only varieties originating in this area. Many families were well established in raising and selling fruit, so that after the first engine had steamed through town on Thanksgiving Day in 1869, the freight cars were soon to be loaded with fruit. A few years later the Framingham Tribune noted that "Joseph Perkins has an enormous crop of peaches to gather. If he is successful in chartering a peach train to run daily to Chicago, he will be able to supply that city with delicious fruit the coming season." Apples, however, were the choice of most of these Yankee farmers, for they kept better and there was such a ready market at hand for bruised or orchard-run fruit Sherborn's cider mills. And in 1870 there were 20 such mills (which were by now even importing carloads of apples from the south) listed on the Assessors' books! It was so successful a production that G. F. Clement, whose cider mill was at the center of town, rented it to a large Boston concern, Hard and Wilkinson, who made cider and did an extensive business in pickling and relishes for the markets. Other Sherbornites preferred to run their own mills; James Salisbury was situated next to where the Memory Statue now stands, and here along with his paint shop he had his cider and vinegar mill his vinegar was said to be superior. The Holbrook Brothers Cider Mill, later owned and operated by P. McCarthy &. Son, was situated on Forest Street, near the railroad crossing. In 1892 the Framingham paper noted "Holbrook Bros. recently shipped 1,000 barrels of refined cider to Europe. It required a powerful locomotive to draw the train over the Old Colony Railroad." That year they shipped 19 carloads to England, and they were reputed to be the largest cider mill in the world! With Sherborn's orchards so well known, it was quite proper that in 1893, the town would establish an "Award for the appre-
38 Sherborn hension and conviction of a thief of fruits," so think twice ere you pick in another man's orchard! Sherborn, involved in the problems that the question of water supply could cause for a community, graciously deeded land in the north of town to the City of Boston in 1875 for the installation of the Sudbury River conduit, which was being constructed for the Metropolitan District Commission Water Supply. Having been so generous, however, the Town was greatly annoyed at the damage done to the Town Farm at the end of Rockwood Street through which the conduit passed, and she let the State know it. The following year the contractor paid the Town of Sherborn $ 100 for damages. The Town Farm was the old Rockwood-Hooker place and had been in use since the Town purchased it in 1857. The Town Report tells us in 1879 that "nothing eventful has happened at the Farm and the residents number only five," so it is not surprising that under Article 4 in 1893, the people voted to sell the place. The next year, however, at two special town meetings in January, the Town considered a new almshouse and voted to purchase the Coolidge land on South Main Street and erect a new house there. The historic house standing on this property had been not only the home of Curtis Coolidge, whose death had occurred so close to his wife's that they had been buried at a double funeral, but had previously been the home and gunshop of Thomas Holbrook who was famous for his Revolutionary fowling pieces. The house itself was purchased from the Town by Mr. Patrick McCarthy, who moved it down the hill and situated it well back from the road in the center of the beautiful meadow where it was known as the McCarthy homestead for many years (91 South Main Street). When the New Almshouse was built and the 70 foot windmill, which raised the water from the spring to a 1,000-gallon tank in the attic, was completed, the Building Committee set forth an account of expenses which even included an item of $ 1.80 for sharpening drills and picks by Rufus Holbrook, Sherborn's blacksmith of that time (1 South Main Street). A description of the interior of the building said that there were 20 rooms as well as "a laundry room in the basement, fitted with set tubs and all laundry conveniences." It was to house the elderly who had outlived their families or whose families were unable to care for them, and was under the aegis of the Overseers of the Poor. Sherborn's Widows' and Orphans' Society, unique in Massa-
The Heritage 39 chusetts when it had been founded in 1859, received a handsome bequest, in 1890, of $748.00 from the estate of Aaron Greenwood, who had lived parsimoniously in the property he inherited from his father Jonas (110 Washington Street). He was in the 91st year of his life when he died childless, and made this bequest, leaving the rest of his estate to his church and the Sherborn Library. The Widows' and Orphans' Society still continues its benevolent work but as its constitution stated, "it is not intended that this charity shall in any way or manner relieve the town of its duty to its poor." It would be many years before the country would provide 'welfare' and the responsibility for the care of the indigent fell squarely on the shoulders of the Town. These economically depressed times before the turn of the century were soon peopled with thousands who needed help, and in looking for a day's labor or even a chore to do to earn a meal, they took to the roads. For the most part they were good people experiencing hard times, coming to the cities by the thousands and to Sherborn by the hundreds. "The Tramps" as they were known throughout the east, numbered 672 lodged and fed in Sherborn during the year of 1876, and the Town Report described them as "coming in upon us like an army of locusts, threatening to devour all our substance." The following year, this matter had not much improved and in our Town records was cynically entered, "Well, let our Legislators provide a remedy, if they can." As it had in the past, the Town was looking to the Great and General Court for relief and the Legislature did pass a Vagrancy Bill which Sherborn felt would prove effective and so stated, "The Legislature of 1880, for relieving the community of these pests, should be held in our grateful remembrance." But laws don't fill stomachs, and until the economy picked up Sherborn would continue to reluctantly lodge and feed a few hundred vagrants a year. The Town had been through many troubled town meetings in coming to the decision of building the Almshouse for its own poor, but the Town House was to see closer votes and more heated debates about building a Tramp House and Lock-up. At an adjourned Special Town Meeting in 1894, the proposal was finally resolved in the vote to build, where the Town Shed is now on Farm Road, the only jail that Sherborn has ever had. Here it stood, stark and bare, with no chimney to provide for the luxury of heat. There were two narrow cells, partitioned with free-standing walls, across from the entrance which was near the front corner of the oblong building. In the end
40 Sherborn wall near the entrance was a window which did present the only attempt to look the part of a jail, with wooden bars on its lower sash. The 'foyer' was formed by an extension of the cell wall and in this was a doorway to the other three-quarters of the building. Here tramps were allowed to sleep and the only two windows were on the rear wall and bore nary a bar. There is no record that this was ever used as a 'lock-up' but rather as a shelter for those passing through. It was moved away to do duty as a storage house at 8 Farm Road and was eventually torn down, but it was not used at all for several years before being sold. There were more Sherborn residents to give a hand to those in need and fewer displaced persons who needed it. Initially the question of town water arose in Sherborn in the 1870s and was to plague the town for over 50 years. The area which touched off the situation was the northern part of town. This is the section which had caused heated tempers in 1700 when Framingham was incorporated and its Sherborn bounds had to be left undecided for ten years. At that time there were 17 families in the disputed area who wanted to become part of Framingham because it was closer to them, but Sherborn, who had a valid claim here, was reluctant to give them up. Though remonstrances were sent to the Court by the inhabitants of Sherborn and by its minister, the great contention was finally settled by the strong hand of the law against Sherborn, when the Court passed the order in 1710, that the section was to be included in Framingham and to be "accounted part of that town forever." The Court also compensated Sherborn by giving her 4,000 acres of land (which later was incorporated as the town of Douglas). This transfer to Framingham left a triangular piece of Sherborn projecting between Framingham and Natick which, in 1882, had but five or six houses situated upon it. Although containing approximately 100 acres, it seemed the most unlikely spot for a village as only a small portion was arable with the rest in swampy lowland. However, the Para Rubber Company had set up a large factory in South Framingham not far from the Sherborn line. As a number of the employees for this company would not be from the area, living quarters had to be provided. The owner of this Sherborn acreage made arrangements with the Para Company to erect several blocks of tenements on his land with the manufactory guaranteeing the rents. Soon, others made similar arrangements, or erected cottages for rent, until within two years large numbers of dwellings stood on the only land that was suitable for building.
The Heritage 41
The number of new residents was estimated at 300 and it became necessary to build and maintain new roads. The school in that section of town which had never been filled was soon overflowing and a new one had to be built. The people, though living in Sherborn, were really not a part of it as their interests and activities all centered in Framingham. This staid old town of Sherborn was not a little disturbed by
42 Sherborn these events, and the crux of the problem centered around the providing of water and sewerage for such a densely populated area. In 1889, a petition was presented to the Legislature to take from Sherborn this territory and another larger strip amounting in all to 575 acres and annex it to Framingham. Historian Doctor Blanchard commented at the time that only the triangle should have been asked for and not the large area mentioned in the petition. Frank H. Butterworth of South Framingham was the spokesman for the petitioners and stated that the residents of the area lived three miles from Sherborn center and were already a part of Framingham in everything but the name and the privilege of acting in its public affairs. He was not being very diplomatic when he added that they were not receiving the benefits from Framingham's excellent school system, library, water service, fire department and other superior public institutions. He and others, on invitation, attended a Special Town Meeting in Sherborn to discuss this question, and he referred to the compensation to be paid by Framingham but was very indefinite about it. Sherborn was not committing herself, but she did appoint a committee of five to represent the Town at the Legislature. There was a great amount of interest in the subject and it was the topic of frequent discussion among the inhabitants. The concensus was that the people of Sherborn would not be easily persuaded to give up this acreage, especially if there were not a "fair and equitable compensation," which she had become accustomed to expect, but that Framingham would eagerly vote to accept the gift. Charles Francis Adams, editor of the Sherborn Tribune, led the opposition and argued that it would be "an act of injustice as well as a financial injury to the town" to part with 575 acres that was "not only self-supporting but able to pay a share towards the maintenance of the Centre." He presented many arguments for not giving up this acreage on which lived one third of the total population of Sherborn. One of his reasons was that the Women's Reformatory, whose lands were included in the 575 acres, "is of some value as an advertising medium to the town of Sherborn and the honor which is conferred upon the town by possessing the only female reformatory in the world is of no small importance." At the State House hearing on the "petition of certain citizens of Sherborn and Framingham that that part of the former town commonly known as 'Sherbornville' be annexed to Framingham," counsel for the petitioners presented their arguments and Franklin
The Heritage 43 Grout spoke for Sherborn. Except for one resident, "who got considerably warmed up before he was through" the opposition was mild. Even the Sherborn Committee felt that Sherborn people would favor the line change. The Great and General Court, Chapter 273, drafted an "Act to annex part of the Town of Sherborn to the Town of Framingham," which under due process of law had to be voted on by each of the towns. In May of 1890, the editor of the Framingham Tribune wrote that the Act was a fair one and that "the matter now only awaits the favorable action of the town of Framingham to become law." However, a few days before their June third Town Meeting to vote on the matter, Framingham sentiment had definitely turned against the proposition, for people there had been seriously considering the possible expense involved in sewerage construction. The circulars distributed during the day of Town Meeting were perhaps not necessary. They stated that the annexation was a ploy of Boston's Council and her Agents to have Framingham drain the swamps and install a system for sewerage because Sherborn couldn't afford to do it, but the result was already a foregone conclusion. The referendum was soundly defeated by Framingham and the question was left to fester and plague the towns for another 34 years. The Town House was not a consideration in the first century and a half because the town meeting was an integral part of the church business meeting and as such was held at the Meeting House which belonged to the Town. The records of the two were intermingled until 1734, when the Clerk started to keep the minutes of one at the front, and of the other at the back of the same book! In 1809, the separation of the church and the Town business was, completely effected and two separate books were utilized. In 1836, the Town needed a place to conduct its meetings and purchased of the proprietors the private academy which had been built on the church common. This became the Town House, and all of Sherborn's business was enacted here until, in the 1850's people became disenchanted with it. An editorial in 1856 about the Town House said that not much could be said of it in the way of commendation. "It is poorly fitted for the transaction of our public business and the hall is by no means suitable for those lectures on moral and scientific subjects that the welfare of this community demand. We do not aspire to an edifice so spacious and costly as some of our neighbors but we would have one that in some good degree comports with the intelligence and taste of the age in which we live."
44 Sherborn In 1858, a new Town House was built on the southeast corner of the Common, just where the old one had been. This new Town House way a neat structure of sufficient size for the wants of the Town and contained two graceful stairways leading to the large meeting hall, which the townspeople used so much that it needed remodeling in 1875. It was at this time that the Town Fathers for the first time purchased insurance for a town building, and the following year the lower floor of the Town House caught fire! The loss was adjusted by the insurance company and no time was lost in refurbishing the part which had been destroyed. One stairway had been removed and the resulting northwest comer room was added to the middle room for library use. At a cost of just over $400, this room became quite a cosy reading room with an ingrain carpet on the floor and an airtight stove that could heat and didn't smoke. It was all finished in time for the rededication to be held on the seventeenth of June and, coupled with a celebration of the Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, was another gala day for the whole town. The upper hall was so popular that organizations had to sign up for it weeks in advance, and there were rates established for dances, parties, concerts or just plain meetings. Only the Temperance group used it without charge. To add to the sociability of the gatherings the Town bought a piano for the hall and voted, when it was two years old, that any resident could use it for free. Five thousand dollars received by the Town under the will of Thomas Dowse of Cambridge had been utilized in the building of the Town Hall with the expressed purpose of including a classroom for higher education in the classics. The large and airy room which extended across the back of the first floor was Sherborn's Dowse Memorial High School until the funds which sustained it were placed in the corporation to be known as Sawin Academy. The High School had its last independent term in 1873, when blackboards and erasers along with the students were moved across the way into the beautiful new Sawin Academy which so much resembled the many other turreted buildings being put up by towns throughout New England. The Selectmen chose to have the old classroom for their own quarters and the Town was pleased to buy a fireproof safe for the Town documents as the first major purchase for the 'Selectmen's Office.' The one they chose is still in use, standing over seven feet high in its original location and ornately decorated in gold leaf, a marvelous thing to behold. In 1893, the Town voted to have as
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well a brick vault which was constructed for $400 and which had to extend beyond the building. The additional land required for the extension was deeded to the town by C. A. Clark, whose family had also sold land to the Town for Sawin Academy. In this room were to be worked out the periphery changes that would be necessary to more readily expedite the running of the Town. The Town Fathers placed in the 1885 Town Meeting the first article, which gave the Moderator the right to choose tellers to count votes cast at any meeting of the Town. The subsequent year, another timesaving innovation was suggested and voted upon favorably with the townspeople even voting $10 to implement it, if it could be legally done. This provided that a list of Town officers be placed on a ballot and voted on at one time. The Town Meeting
46 Sherborn was at this time an all-day affair, but even so it was difficult to get through all the articles, which included voting for town officers and state referenda. Even the Selectmen's term was for only one year and voting orally for each office took time and usually engendered considerable feeling. The cost of printing the ballot was certainty worthwhile. In 1771, the Selectmen had had their troubles with a disorderly Town Meeting, and had complained to the Court of the Province of Massachusetts about it. In 1886, when it was found that the Special Town Meeting called for June 10th was illegal because it had not been posted seven days ahead, the nineteenth-century Board handled it without help of the Court and immediately set July 31st as the date for a new one giving the constables plenty of time to post notice of it on the public boards in each part of town. There were many Special Town Meetings called concerning specific questions but regular town business should be enacted at an Annual Town Meeting. The Selectmen worked diligently on the Annual Warrant endeavoring to include all necessary items and in 1892, they set a particular date, the first Monday in March, for the Annual Town Meeting to be held each year. Their diligence covered divers aspects, too, for in 1882, when the Town first registered itself as being against the sale of liquor, a Selectmen's article provided for the appointment of officers to prosecute "liquor violators." The temperance movement was very active in town and it wasn't difficult to fill these positions. Town Meeting was an important matter of business but it most assuredly was not all that the Town House offered. The lanterns which illuminated the stairs and hall and even served as footlights on the stage required constant polishing and were admittedly a fire hazard. Many an evening they surely gave the building an elegant glow as you approached for an evening affair. Sherborn entered the Twentieth Century as part of a great nation which had just come of age, for the Spanish-American War, recently ended, had laid to rest the era of innocence and buried the vision of an isolated, self-sufficient America. That the United States came through this transition period without a searing break with the past or its own tradition was in no small part due to the profound flexibility of her people. We entered this era of new responsibilities while still retaining our humane values and cherishing the preservation of individual life, the independent spirit and voluntary unity.
The Heritage 47 Sherborn took in her stride the technological advances, which changed everyone's way of life, but was not overwhelmed by them. Roads were improved for the horseless carriage and the new mobility brought more traffic and the need of road signs. The names of our roadways, as in other New England towns, were decided by the purpose they best suited. Thus the main way through town, traveled by the coach, became the Post Road; the road to Framingham was called just that; and when a different road was built which had the same destination, it was called the New Road to Framingham. Smaller ways bore the name of something important on or near them, as a mill or a lake, and some were therefore known by more than one name. In 1900, the Selectmen suggested, in the Warrant, that the streets in town should be given specific names, and they invited the townspeople to help make the decisions. The people were happy to oblige, but it wasn't until 1907, that the name finally chosen for each street was listed in the Town Report. Prominent old families were memorialized; Main Street was separated North from South where Washington Street joined it, and Washington Street was thus named because it was a documented fact that our first President had traversed it. The study of the names of Sherborn's streets is a history in itself, though some roads were removed from town with a gift of land to Framingham in 1925. Those responsible for naming streets which have come into being more recently have availed themselves of the suggestions listed by the Historical Society so that most of Sherborn's roadways bear good, sensible New England names. Telephone poles had started to appear along the roadsides as early as I 890, and two years after that the Postal Cable Telegraph Company had twelve lines running through Sherborn. The posts which they employed were not used later by the other utilities, and in 1902, the great question under discussion in the town was who had a right to cut down the old unused telegraph poles, which had then stood some five years as an eyesore and menace to the public. In 1900, people were deploring the increase in the number of poles and thought it would be much nicer to have the wires underground. In December of that year, John J. Burke had a phone at his Tanglewood Farm on Forest Street and "could be reached day or night," In three years there were poles erected for telephone wires, soon after to be used for electric service, from Dover down Farm Road, from Framingham down Western
48 Sherborn Avenue and the roadways leading from it, and from Main Street along Goulding and Woodland Streets through Hollis and Mill Streets. The first electric lights came to the north of town from Natick in 1911, and street lighting was the subject of an article at Town Meeting that year. That was the year, too, that lights as well as the first telephone were installed in the Town House. For just over ten years, the Selectmen put up with the extravagance of a telephone, which wasn't really needed for Town business. They had one in their offices removed in the spring of '23, because, "we don't use it enough to warrant paying for it and in our absence, its availability has been abused." Sherborn was quick to consider electricity a necessity, but it did change the life style, and in a very short time. At the beginning of the century the people got up early, with the sun, and then retired early, thus making their evenings of relaxation short. Kerosene lamps on their carriages got them to the Town House or to a neighbor's for an evening's outing and served as well as they did in the home. The lamps needed considerable care with daily filling, chimney polishing, and wick trimming. Is it a wonder that electric lights were most appreciated? It would be some time, though, before the farmer gave up carrying his chimneyed kerosene lantern, swinging on its handle, to light his way to the barn. People would soon be using electric power to pump their water, too, but in the early 1900s, the Sherborn countryside was dotted with windmills which forced the water into a high storage tank, from where it was gravity-fed to the house and barns. It was newsworthy to report, in 1901, that Jonathan Eames (102 Washington Street) had "built a cistern on the hill in back of his house which he can keep full of water from a spring. He then gravity-feeds the water into the buildings on the place." The most sensational change in the life of the townspeople was happening right on their roads. The Road Surveyor's problems increased with the coming of the Locomobile in 1900, and he urged the farmers to use wide wheels on farm wagons, because the narrow iron 'tires' cut ruts which the Locomobiles found difficult to negotiate. Dr. Story, heading into town in his contraption so startled Mr. Hodge's horse, leisurely pulling a wagonload of produce to the markets in Natick, that he took the bit in his teeth, swung around and bolted for home. Dr. Sylvester of South Sherborn (66 Forest Street) was soon gliding through town with his new 'automobile car' and getting about so quickly, that it left
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time for him to spend in his garden and, in 1902, he was awarded $10 by W. A. Burpee Seed Company for the largest and best produce raised from their new string bean seeds. Dr. Sylvester's prize pods measured nine inches. It was at this time that Sherborn orchardists thought they had a great thing going when they were given a chance to ship their apples to England through a Boston agent. The British came out on top in this skirmish, because there was a 2’ loss per barrel in the final analysis. All the farmers were happy to go back to selling their apples to the Holbrook Cider Mill, even though each teamster had to get a number and wait to back in on his turn. The young Holbrook brothers formed a "Fur Club" that summer, and turned a pretty penny on the nearly 90 skunks they caught, with each skin worth from a quarter to a dollar. In the winter months, they bagged five fox, nine mink, and fifty-one skunks. They weren't the only ones after the predators who had
50 Sherborn so increased as to be a grave concern to the farmers. Fox were so plentiful and brazen that they walked boldly into farmyards in broad daylight, but not more than once if the farmer were about with his inherited Holbrook or Leland gun handy. The poultry-men were sorely tried, and not only by the four-legged thieves. Several hundred fowl were stolen over the summer months in Sherborn, and editorials were written about burglar alarms for chicken coops. Farmers let it be known that they had their shotguns in readiness for any emergency, especially after 108 hens were taken from a Main Street farm one night and a note tied to the leg of the one hen that was left, "Fat her up and we will call for her soon." The greatest excitement was caused by the capture of a Green Mountain wildcat, after searching parties had combed the area where it had been seen. At the first light dusting of snow, they were able to finally track it down in West Sherborn and peace reigned once more. The oldest residents couldn't recall such an animal being in the town before. News filtered back to Sherborn of those who had sought their fortunes outside of Middlesex County. One of the most successful and glamourous stories was of Joshua Holbrook and his wife, who were on a tour of Canada in 1901, with the Keith Circuit, billed as the "greatest of musical artists, able to play any instrument." Some young men, including Will Dearth, headed for Puerto Rico where they spent the winter drilling wells on the plantations of Boston businessmen. Henry Goulding and his sons took the expertise garnered from the steamboats on Farm Pond and ran a tugboat in Boston Harbor. Though most Sherbornites, in this first decade of the new century, settled for a trip to the Colonial Theatre in Boston to see the extravaganza of Ben Hur on the stage, and found it well worth the effort and expense, there were some who went to 'the ends of the earth.' British Guiana was where Amory L. Babcock had headed in the 1800s, seeking and mounting unusual specimens for his own and other famous collections. He was an enthusiast of natural history, attracted especially to the beauty of birds and butterflies, and 1200 of his mounted birds went to the Wellesley College Museum for safekeeping only to be destroyed in their disastrous fire. A direct descendant of Ebenezer, who had drawn a home-lot in West Sherborn in 1696, Amory was born in 1826, in the house his father built at 123 North Main Street, and he became a notable figure in this quiet country town. A representative
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series of birds and mammals, secured in South America, may be seen at the Bacon Free Library in South Natick. There is no doubt that the museum in his home and his enthusiastic personality aroused the interest in natural history which made famous collectors of Alfred Hawes and Albert P. Morse, who as young boys listened to his stories of an evening in Clark's store as the men and boys sat around the fire. After spending 20 years in Africa, Alfred Hawes returned
to become Sherborn's Postmaster in 1900, a position his father had held. He and his cousin, Frank Salisbury, when in their early twenties, had left Sherborn and landed at Cape Town, South Africa, in 1874. They were fired by wanderlust and the opportunities presented at the gold and diamond fields. They settled first in Kimberly to try their hand at diamond digging in the area eventually taken over by the DeBeers Company, and then they started exploring the untraveled lands. Among Hawes accomplishments was taxidermy, and in his few visits home he brought a collection of stuffed beasts, birds and insects that was placed in the Peabody Museum and the museums at Harvard and Wellesley Colleges, and he provided Randolph Churchill with a rare mounted specimen in commission for Baron Rothschild. Salisbury did not return from a trip into the interior, but Hawes, undaunted,
52 Sherborn traveled and bartered among the natives for twelve years. He mastered all the commoner dialects. The resulting collection of native weapons and utensils is unsurpassed and his photographic views of native tribes proved to be ethnologically valuable. He made use of his knowledge of homely remedies and medicines when the opportunity offered, and was able to effect the cure of a native fellow suffering from erysipelas. Some time afterwards, on a trading expedition into the ulterior, Hawes' caravan, consisting of himself and a half dozen black servants with several wagonloads of trade goods, was surrounded by more than 300 natives and he was, naturally, perturbed. The son of the Chief of this tribe proved to be the young man whom Hawes had cured and the Chief, who couldn't do enough for him, presented him with his most prized possession, Dr. Livingstone's magnet, which had been picked up where the Boers had dropped it after their raid and plundering of Livingstone's house. (This also is at the Peabody Museum in Salem with other mementoes of that intrepid Scotch missionary-explorer.) Alfred Hawes was awarded, in 1892, a great gold medal at the South African and International Exhibition in Kimberly, for his collection and identification of insects of the region. This and the unusual display of carved stones held by his descendant, are surpassed only by a lion's claw, set with uncut diamonds and inscribed on its gold cap with the explorer's name. After his death in 1907, it was his young friend, Albert Morse, who urged that Hawes' collection of birds be donated to Harvard University. Albert P. Morse, a direct descendant of a first settler of Sherborn, Daniel Morse, Sr., was born in the family homestead in 1863, the last generation of his family to reside there. He was an all-round naturalist but primarily an entomologist, who started at an early age collecting specimens of the wild life about his home (177 Farm Road). He became renowned in a wide range of his scientific interests. An able and inspiring teacher, he was affiliated with Wellesley College, Carnegie Institution of Washington, and Peabody Museum of Salem, where he served as curator of natural history. He contributed much information to the government geodetic survey maps. His work took him far afield from his home town, but he came back often to visit friends and to take a walk up to Sawin Academy, where he had graduated with the Class of 1879. When the Dowse Memorial Library was presented to the Town of Sherborn on June 10, 1914, the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra provided the music for the Dedication held at the Town
The Heritage 53 House. William B. H. Dowse presented this munificent gift in memory of his parents. Rev. Edmund and Elizabeth B. Dowse, and requested the Trustees of the Library to allow the Sherborn Historical Society to use the Hall, and that the building be a "center of education and sociability." In accordance with a vote of the Town, these Dedicatory Exercises and Orations, including an Address by his Excellency, David I. Walsh, the Governor of the Commonwealth, were published. In 1971, this building was transferred to the Selectmen, for the use of Town offices and the Historical Society, by the Library Trustees when their new building on Sanger Street was finished. A Decree of the County Court legalized the above transfer and the building is known as the 'Dowse Memorial Office Building.' Sherborn has been fortunate indeed in the generosity extended by her citizens. The new library, affording the space so badly needed, in a setting of architectural delight, was dedicated on January 17, 1971, a gift of Richard and Mary B. Saltonstall. The month after the Dowse Library had been dedicated in 1914, a hail and windstorm cut a swath through the center of town with disastrous results to crops and livestock. Silos and trees were blown down and in the Pilgrim and First Parish and the Town House some 50 panes of glass were broken. Apple trees were denuded of their fruit as the hailstones, some as big as walnuts, came as if shot from a rifle. Not only did they break windows but even cut through screens. When the storm passed, the ground was covered with pieces of ice. Windows would have to be reglazed, but, first things first. On hand were hailstones which could be shoveled into barrels. This, Dr. Cushing and Fred Dingley did and then they brought out their icecream freezers and got busy. There had been no storm at all in South Sherborn where work had begun on the South Main Street approach to the bridge. An Act of the Legislature of 1914 had authorized the building of a new bridge over the Charles connecting Sherborn and Medfield, replacing the fieldstone buttressed bridge with its wooden posts and railings, which stood at the same spot that the original settlers of Sherborn had first set foot on this soil. When Death Bridge needed repairs in 1923, a stone tablet noting its historic significance was set into one of the posts. In 1963, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts built the present Death Bridge east of the original site, so that a curve in the Sherborn approach could
54 Sherborn be eliminated. The buttresses of the 1914 bridge, marking the historic spot, still stand. Sherborn was no longer 'plagued by tramps,' but there were bands of gypsies, traveling by horsedrawn caravan, which crossed Death's Bridge into town in the spring of the year and chose the Cross Street area to make camp. This signaled to the townspeople that they should take measures to protect their property. The Town didn't look to the Legislature for a solution to this problem. At Town Meeting in 1915, the citizens passed a 'Hawkers and Peddlers' law. Baseball was so popular in the first quarter of this century that Sherborn fielded a Town Team and an A.A. Team as well, with some fellows playing on both. They had ambitious schedules, and played against teams representing towns and organizations from as far away as Dedham. Practice and home games were at McCarthy's field on South Main Street until they moved down to the field that adjoins 33 North Main. This proved most unsatisfactory because the many good sluggers hit the ball over the fence into the freight houses, stalling the game until someone had climbed the fence and found the ball. The playground across the way was leased and became the home of the Sherborn teams. The most popular postcards were those of the team each year, in uniform and with their manager, of course. Notable in this position were Harold Jackson and Henry Bothfeld, both playing managers. Team members were in their teens or early twenties, but the newspaper account noted in 1925, "It is amazing what Jackson's rejuvenated players can do when a 'will to win' is the motto. The Sherborn A.A. and Natick Stars played one of the best games the fans have seen for many a month. Everyone was on his toes. Winning run in the ninth by West made the score 2 to 1 for Sherborn. Ted Bothfeld made a fine catch of a high foul and there were many good fielding stunts, with a few errors, to keep the contest exciting." Edward and Theodore and Francis Newman were Chick, Gramp and Zip, respectively, to all baseball fans, as Harold Auringer was Tubby. The nation might idolize Babe Ruth, but Sherbornians had their choice of Nat and Floyd Dowse, Jim Farricy, Gene and Frank Rollins, Joe Dufour, Dudley Clark, Bill and Teddy Lane, Howard Preston or Francis Grout. Sherborn also boasted "The Sherborn Tennis Club," and the members helped to prepare three courts on the grounds of the Center School. When they were finally finished on May 30, 1905,
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56 Sherborn they had a grand opening Tournament followed by a supper at the Town House when it got too dark to play. President of the Club, Robert H. Leland, noted that "The most encouraging feature was the witnessing of so many ladies who participated with great zest and manipulated the racket and ball in a very able manner." The Town leased the land at the junction of Eliot and North Main Streets from the Pauls, in 1915, to try it out as a playground. It proved to be most suitable and they, therefore, acquired it in 1923, and bought contiguous lands the following year on Pine Hill to be used for the Cemetery and the playground. Two years after the incorporation of Sherborn's Historical Society, the Old South Cemetery, in June of 1915, was the scene of a great gathering of people from Holliston, Medway and Sherborn, when the Historical Societies of the three towns unveiled a memorial boulder with a bronze tablet which read, "The most ancient burying ground on the west bank of the Charles River. Established by the settlers of the Boggestowe Farms before 1660. Here rest from their labors the founders of Sherborn, Holliston and Medway. Erected by the Historical Societies of the three towns, 1915." When Congress declared war on April 6, 1917, and General Pershing left for France, Sherborn maintained the record she had held in past conflicts when she had been in the forefront in coming to the defense of her country. More than 100 men left this small town to serve in the armed forces. One of these made the supreme sacrifice, and William A. Bosworth's name was memorialized by the American Legion when they organized a Post in Sherborn after the war. Those at home worked under the leadership of the Red Cross group to produce great numbers of surgical dressings and knitted garments. In November 1919, just a year after the Armistice was signed, the Town had a celebration to commemorate the return of her soldiers and sailors, and plans were soon underway for the Memorial statue which would be presented to the Town five years later. Under the Provisional Charter of the Colony, a woman owning property had been allowed to vote, but in spite of tradition, the suggestion of granting such a right to women did not appear in Sherborn's Town Records until 1881. Then in 1895, the people were presented with the question, "Is it expedient that municipal suffrage be granted to women?" The votes, duly recorded, read:
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Music of the Sea
58 Sherborn No 71, Yes 49, and 58 voters who didn't feel it worthy of their consideration. Though it would appear on the ballot couched in different words through the years, Sherborn would follow the rest of the country on this question. She produced no Carrie Nations, for Sherborn women were too busy. Many did own their homes in town, had 'money at interest' but, no doubt, knew full well that "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the town and thus the world." Sherborn women didn't need the vote, however, to be among those first acclaimed in the world of medicine, law and art. Sarah Agnes Hayes of Coolidge Street, who was born in 1890, one of the third generation of Hayes in Sherborn, went on from Sawin Academy and college to graduate from Portia Law School with 23 other young ladies, and used her talents in the fledgling department of Income Tax at the State House. Dr. Esther Richards, who was born in 1883, and grew up on her family's farm at 26 Bullard Street, also attended Sawin Academy. She went on to Johns Hopkins for her M.D. and practiced psychiatry on the staff of that hospital, earning many honors in her field. Mrs. Theo Ruggles Kitson, who was born in 1871, was the first woman and first American sculptor to receive the gold medal from the President of France when she was a student of but seventeen years at Paris. She opened a studio with her husband, Henry Hudson Kitson, also a renowned sculptor, on Western Avenue (not standing). Alone and collaborating, they raised great statues in the Boston area as well as in other parts of the country and abroad. Framingham proudly points to her 'Minute Man' Monument at Buckminster Square; Watertown to 'Sir Richard Saltonstall'; the State House to 'Endicott Memorial'; and the Boston Public Garden to the 'Kosciusco' statue. An heroic-sized bronze of Roger Conant took up its commanding position in 1911, overlooking the Salem Common, where Conant had been a first settler. 'Pilgrim Maiden' is a point of interest at Plymouth, 'Equestrian Victory' in Hingham and 'Doughboy' in nearby Hopkinton. At the Boston Museum of Fine Arts is located the only Kitson statue in this area which does not have an historic subject, an enchanting piece titled 'Music of the Sea.' Then, when the vote was theirs, Sherborn women didn't ignore it, but merely took it in their stride as their due. It wasn't long before they quietly appeared on committees where they could be helpful, and where it wouldn't interfere with their home responsibilities, but things really didn't change much. At Town
The Heritage 59 Meeting, the ladies still seemed more interested in their knitting or needlepoint. In 1924, however, the issues being argued at the Town's longest Town Meeting caused many a dropped stitch. The Town boundary between Sherborn and Framingham, after 1710, ran along Beaver Dam Brook. A small bridge, which is still there, was built over the brook at Beaver Street by the two towns. The Women's Reformatory was in Sherborn, having been constructed in 1877, at the urging of some Sherborn citizens, and the Commonwealth Gas Company was also within our bounds. The area was known as North Sherborn. Many of the people were oriented towards South Framingham, where they worked and shopped, but many also preferred to be involved in Sherborn's affairs and held offices on several Town boards. Since Sherborn did not then have her zoning laws, the properties in North Sherborn were built close together, making water and sewerage a real problem. In 1911, Sherborn had contracted with the Town of Framingham to pipe water to these homes on the town's border, as had been done long before for the Reformatory. During the years since the defeat of the Annexation Act in 1890, which would have made this section of Sherborn a part of Framingham, the Town had given much attention to this part of town. The three and a half miles of roads there were as good as or better than those in the rest of town. The need for a sewerage system in this section was a vital question, however, as was the concomitant need for municipal water. When World War I was over, concerned people in both parts of town tried to find a good solution to the problem. One answer proposed was the old one of annexation. Its proponents focused their attention on the question of 'town water' with the expressed opinion that with that defeated, the accomplishment of divestment would readily follow. They also noted that in a short time there would be as many voters in the north precinct as there were in the south, and that town water might then be approved. The Town Meetings held in the year 1923, were Sherborn's most turbulent. In the Warrant for the regular March Meeting which was twice adjourned, there were 55 articles, and the 41st one was concerned with the installation and operation of a water system and the issuance of bonds to defray the cost of the same. Voting was done by ballot, using the checklist, because a bond issue, then as now, required a two-thirds vote. It was defeated by 100 affirmative and 51 negative, and the meeting was
60 Sherborn adjourned to the following night. When the meeting reconvened, Article 41 was brought up for reconsideration, and was carried by 140 to 60 votes. The vote to adjourn was again employed. At what was to be the final meeting on the question of 'town water,' the Town Hall held just twice as many voters as it had when the initial meeting was called to order. It was scarcely opened when the motion was made to reconsider Article 41 with a vote on this motion to be done by ballot. When counted, a discrepancy, between the ballots and the checklist, of three votes brought a 'No Vote' decision from the Moderator. Upon a motion to adjourn, which was seconded, the close vote required a recount of hands and the motion was defeated by ten votes. Each side had made use of adjournment during this lengthy Town Meeting, and this time when the attempt failed, the Moderator decisively put aside his gavel, handed his resignation to the Town Clerk and left the hall. This did not accomplish what was perhaps intended, for upon his resignation, another Moderator was subsequently elected. Thus did John Burke assume the duties of Moderator, and, with many of the voters having left because they thought the meeting adjourned, the procedure to revote Article 41 was readily carried out, with the result that there was one vote in favor and 146 opposed to 'town water' and the bond issue it involved. The group stayed to finish all of the 55 articles, for they were determined to dissolve the meeting to prevent a reconsideration of Article 41. The motion was finally made, seconded and carried that Sherborn's Annual Town Meeting for 1923 be dissolved, at 2:15 in the morning. This proved to be Sherborn's longest Town Meeting. A Special Town Meeting was called in May 1923, to vote on Annexation, and it was voted to establish boundary lines with Framingham, making part of Sherborn become part of Framingham. The article covered three pages and was concerned with committees to meet with Framingham, the laying out of bounds and the requests concerning surveying and legal expenses. Framingham voted to accept the offer at their June Town Meeting, and plans were drafted by the two towns to be presented to the Legislature, whose acceptance and proposal would be returned to each town in January 1924, to be ratified by a referendum. The intervening months were trying times for the Town, for there were two sides to this question and each one had valid reasons and figures to back what they felt was best for the Town
The Heritage 61 and its people. Under consideration was what proved to be nearly half a million dollars of taxable property, included in 575 acres. Unfortunately, the press of both Framingham and Natick were numbered among the proponents of annexation, and they antagonized many who might otherwise have been sympathetic. The Act of the General Court required that the Referendum be held before June first, and Sherborn's vote was cast for Annexation on May 31, 1924, thus eliminating any chance for reconsideration. The Referendum read "Shall an Act passed by the General Court in 1924 entitled, 'An Act to annex a part of the Town of Sherborn to the Town of Framingham' be accepted?" The vote was 318 to 269 with 3 blanks. The legal transfer would take place on January 1, 1925, and many Boards, including the Board of Selectmen, would have to replace members who would no longer be Sherborn residents after that date. The School Committee started high school students from this area at Framingham High, that September of 1924, on a tuition basis, in order not to disrupt their academic year. Ironically all other Sherborn high school students would be attending the same school, on the same basis, when Sawin Academy closed for lack of sufficient students some years later. When the Board of Selectmen reorganized after January first, they announced that the Town no longer had two voting precincts which had been the case for four years. They then wrote to the Board of Selectmen in Framingham, suggesting a joint meeting to consider necessary steps for establishing the new boundary lines between the two towns. Framingham acknowledged the letter, and deferred the meeting until after their Town Meeting was over. A week later, Framingham ordered four granite boundstones, costing $298, to mark the new lines, and sent the bill to Sherborn. Sherborn had not appropriated enough money to meet such a large item, and the stones seemed more elaborate than necessary, so the Selectmen returned the bill to Framingham. Sherborn was getting back into harness again. 62 Sherborn and yet has transacted her business as legally, and has been impoverished far less by litigation than her sister towns. The immortal Ames established himself in practice in this town, but he soon left for Dedham. About 1812, Daniel Warren opened a Law Office here, but his fees did not encourage his continuance." In drawing up the By-Laws in 1925, the office of a Town Counsel was included in positions to be appointed by the Selectmen. The Selectmen also had an appointed Auditor for their accounts until 1923, when the Town petitioned for the installation of an accounting system by the Commonwealth. In three years this was accomplished, the office of Auditor was abolished, and thereafter the Selectmen appointed a Town Accountant. At Town Meeting in 1915, the people had voted that the business section of subsequent Town Meetings should .be held in the evening, and in 1924, the Annual Town Meeting was divided into two parts. No longer would adjournment be used to tie the two together. Voting at the polls would be held during the day on the first Monday in March, and the Annual Business Meeting as specified in the Warrant. When a larger hall was needed than the Town afforded, the Legislature, under Chapter 88 of 1971, passed an Act which allowed Sherborn to hold Town Meeting at the Dover-Sherborn Regional School in Dover. Balloting, however, was to remain in Sherborn. In the twenties in Sherborn, telephones were available only on a party line basis and there were a limited number of these. When an office opened on Coolidge Street, a line had to be freed for its business phone. The four people on line 343, including a Selectman, were transferred to line 342, which already had seven subscribers. This addition of four more families looked like all would be compelled to obey the scriptural injunction and limit their calls to yea and nay. Morse had noted, in 1856, that "near the westerly line of Sherborn occurs a bed of sienite, which from its proximity to the railroad promises to be extensively quarried." Sixty-eight years later, the Indian Head Quarry Company came to Coolidge Street to mine the ledge which towered over the road, and the President of the company took up residence in town in 1925. The establishment of the quarry company became the town's 'cause celebre' with each side of the question sincerely believing his arguments to be in the best interest of all. On the one hand
The Heritage 63
were those who felt this would be a way to recoup income for the Town, lost in the gift of land to Framingham, while providing much-needed jobs for Sherborn men as well. On the other hand were those who felt that the Town would suffer earthquake tremors from the necessary blasting and a general loss of land values in the vicinity. In the middle were some who expressed the fear that the Commonwealth would step in and run the operation because the ledge was producing fine crushed rock which was being used in the preparation of state highways and, too, as Morse had noted, the railroad was conveniently across the way. By State law, the authority for storing and using dynamite was vested solely in the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen in his capacity as Fire Marshal. The endorsement for the necessary bond was secured by (he company but the license to continue operating was not forthcoming. Whatever the means, the end was accomplished and the Indian Head Company had moved the ledge as we now see it, just a few feet back from the road, when they were obliged to depart. Sherborn lost its first industry since the shoe manufactories had closed down. 64 Sherborn it was built, the Town was maintaining the building on South Main Street for but one person, and it was closed. The Overseers, after a few renovations, rented the building as a parsonage, and it made a gracious home. After a new parsonage was built at 45 South Main Street, the Town voted to sell the unused property. The Archdiocese of Boston purchased the building for a Chapel for the growing number of Catholics in Sherborn. The people wished to have a church near their homes, so they would no longer have to travel to other towns. Just so had the first settlers reasoned in seeking to settle their Puritan Church 250 years before. The Parish of St. Theresa was dedicated in 1925 with Town, State and Federal dignitaries on the platform erected before the newly renovated Chapel on that September afternoon. One of the speakers recalled the statement made by George B. Loring at Sherborn's Two Hundredth Anniversary, "One of the great strengths of a New England town is the fact that she cherishes her churches." Now Sherborn was thrice blessed. Putting aside all problems in October of 1924, everyone had a gay time as the Town celebrated the Two Hundred Fiftieth Anniversary of its Incorporation. No reason for a get-together was ever overlooked, and everyone had fun during this great event. Many homes were filled with former townspeople who had made their way back for the celebration. The Anniversary Banquet and the Ball, which spilled over into Unity Hall from the newly-decorated Town House, were elegant affairs. The sports events, parade, band concerts, and church services, coupled with the dedication of the monument, Memory, filled this three-day celebration. The monument was presented to the Town by William B. H. Dowse, "with the sincere hope that it will incite in the hearts of youth an even greater love for their parents and forebears and a greater love, veneration and respect for the men who have fought for their country in times of its peril." The following March, the townspeople were disgruntled with the change in the format of the Town Report, for it no longer itemized the accounts of the departments. A great winter sport had been abolished, another old-time puzzle eliminated, for now the report would just show that a sum of money was granted to the school or the highway, and at Town Meeting one would have the opportunity to vote only for a total. According to popular opinion, the whole book lacked the intimate, informative communication which had made interesting reading during the long winter evenings.
The Heritage 65
66 Sherborn The great steam engines whistling through town never had seemed to bother the cattle, for they didn't even lift their heads from grazing when it swooped through their lowland pastures. But when the passenger train was replaced by the single car, run by gasoline, it was a different story. As a reporter stated in a 1924 newspaper article, "The railroad busses have a whistle the like of which was never heard on land or sea." Before the cattle, and the people, could get used to this whistle, the 'railroad gas buses' were replaced, in 1933, by the Boston and Worcester Street Railway Company road busses, which were given a license to run between the Post Office and Natick. Different bus companies ran lines through town sporadically, but by the fifties they were permanently replaced by the two-car family. The second track laid to accommodate the numerous freight and passenger trains in 1910 was removed, though freight trains hauled by diesel engines still travel over the line. Bells and lights at the grade crossings have made a legend of the 'Flagman.' Neither were there sparks any more to start the numerous fires which kept the firelighters so busy. Herbert Holbrook retired as forest-fire Marshall and local Fire Chief in 1926, a legend in his own time, for it was he who had suggested and supervised the building of our first fire truck. What a joy and a delight it was, from its chrome radiator cap to the running-boards where the volunteer firemen stood and the handles that had been fashioned for them to hang on to. But most especially was the bell to be admired. It was attached to the hood and was rung from inside the cab by pulling the rope attached to the tongue. This necessitated having the windshield slanted open a bit no matter what the weather, but it was worth it. Herb had taken good care of it in the garage he operated at his home at 14 Coolidge Street. Plans had to be formulated to house the motorized equipment the Town was acquiring, and the Town Meeting that year voted to build a shed on Farm Road where the 'lock-up' had formerly stood. The Town Shed, a sizable building with four bays, was centrally located for the call firemen, not far from the new Chief John C. Jackson's store. It boasted a great and long flat roof. Like the rest of the world, Sherborn, that spring, had been hanging on every word uttered by and about Charles A. Lindbergh, and his record-shattering flight to Paris in the 'Spirit of St, Louis' which occurred just as the Shed was completed. In one of his few interviews, Lindbergh had mentioned that the name of a town
The Heritage 67 painted on the roof of a prominent building was a great help to aeroplanes in their navigating. Hence, Sherborn voted money to paint 'S H E R B 0 R N' in as huge letters as space would permit on that fine, flat roof of the new Town Shed, "to identify the town to aerial traffic." In the spring of 1929, on an overcast and foggy morning, the first plane to land in Sherborn came down in the bumpy meadow west of Maple Street, behind George Dexter's house (190 Maple Street). It was a charter plane flying the U.S. Mail, which had been forced down, and the pilot did not know where he was. When a taxi had been hired, and one of the pilots had gone with the driver to guard the mail to Boston, the second pilot proceeded to check over his open cockpit biplane and the lay of the land for a take-off. He complained that the strange actions of his compass were the cause of his forced landing. Just 100 years before this, the historian Biglow had spoken of City Hill, in this area, "lately so-named, which is little else than a pyramid of rocks, piled up by the rude hand of nature. When the magnetic needle is brought near this, there is a local attraction, which causes it to vary." The pilot asked for a volunteer to 'navigate' for him to Boston by pointing out familiar sights. Samuel R. Carter stepped forward from the crowd which had gathered, and became the first Sherbornite to 'take-off' from Sherborn soil. Sherborn was helpful to those planes that flew right over town or stopped in an emergency, but how people protested when Mr. Gould wanted to turn the private landing field near his home into a commercial field called "Bay State Aeronautics." The proximity of the power lines was a deciding factor, though (site of General Motors parking lot). Horses had outnumbered cars by 100 in 1925, but in the thirties, there was no margin of speculation left about whether they were being replaced by them. The Road Surveyor became a more important and demanding position and the Town again made this an appointive position, to give the Selectmen closer control. They granted them, as well, a sum of money to slow down, if they couldn't cut down, the traffic on the main roads through town. Taking care of streets, so heavily used by vehicles
68 Sherborn weighing considerably more than wagons and carriages, necessitated the use of expensive equipment. In order to prepare for these expenditures, the Road Machinery Fund came into being. Into this would be put regularly what should, in time, amount to the sum needed for a new truck or spreader. The Town Fathers, in this relatively quiet time of the thirties, had a tough national depression to contend with, and they utilized the help afforded through the WPA on projects which would be most beneficial. First, of course, came road work and the clearing of woodlands, but also the Town built the two tennis courts behind the firehouse with WPA help. Farm Pond had been released by the Medfield State Hospital. The control of Farm Pond had reverted to the Town of Sherborn. Our Friend in court had never been more helpful and the Selectmen showed their enthusiastic appreciation by putting a portion of the WPA funds to use in building a beach at the Farm Pond Reservation, with a retaining wall to prevent washouts, and providing benches above the wall for a pleasant place to sit. The stone bath house was built, and a raft and police boat purchased with Town funds. Then Sherborn's active Chapter of the Red Cross put Miss Helen Bothfeld in charge of their swimming program, and the mammoth project of making Farm Pond safe was begun. They would just see to it that everyone in town learned to swim and learned lifesaving procedures as well. There would be no repeat of the tragedy of 1886 when, just a few feet from shore, Henry Howe of South Main Street and Etta Bickford of Farm Road were drowned when their sailboat capsized. Ida Leland, who also didn't know how to swim, was rescued. Over 500 fishing permits were issued in that year of 1936, and the fishermen reported catching more than 400 bass that season. The Heritage 69 The temperance group was no longer active in Sherborn, but their memory lingered on, for the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment passed in town by only six votes, and it was not until 1970 that a small majority voted for the licensing of a package store. The Town House was still the center of things, both business and social. To see that the townspeople were warm on both sides at once during meetings could be construed a necessity rather than an indulgence, so Sherborn voted to install a new heating system at her Town House before the thirties had passed. One of the men who acted as a Town Father through this quiet but crucial decade has lively memories of the times and the people. Richard Saltonstall, who contributed greatly to the solving of many problems, observes,
70 Sherborn
The old bridge connecting Sherborn and Dover had to be replaced in 1934, and the planning for this occupied not only the two towns involved but the two counties of Middlesex and Norfolk as well. It took considerable negotiation on the part of the Sherborn Selectmen to erect the simple country structure which they and their pocketbooks knew it should be. The eyes of Dame Boston seemed always to be upon us, small as we were, and again Dahl had Sherborn the subject of one of his famous cartoons. However, the new bridge had to take a back seat in conversation after September of thirty-eight. This would be remembered in Sherborn as the month of the 'Big Blow,' for the hurricane was not recognized as such before,
The Heritage 71
72 Sherborn
Farm Bridge at Flood Tide during or even for a while after it had gone. In the afternoon of the 21st after several days of rain, the weather appeared to be clearing and gave promise of the beautiful Indian summer which New Englanders feel their due. The air became too still, the light uncanny and even the birds acted strangely. Then the storm descended and for hours 90-mile southeast winds attacked the thing we had the most of tall and beautiful trees all in full leaf thereby giving the wind more play. Even the pencil-thin great pines went down like matchsticks, and the trees of greatest age towering over others were the hardest hit. When the storm had left us with a pitch black evening, the devastation to our woodland was appalling The WPA was still being funded by the Federal Government and these men were quickly put to work clearing away brush, limbs and slash, for the fear of forest fires after the spring season. School was closed for a week. until the power lines were back
The Heritage 73 in order and this gave the youngsters a chance to help clear up their family places as well as to enjoy the once-in-a-lifetime excitement. There wasn't much new building going on in town in 1938, but the Kleins were glad that the progress of their new home at 31 Washington Street had been slow, for the wind whistling through the framework could find no purchase. The Heffrons weren't as fortunate. Their home was nearly completed and suffered little damage, but they had chosen to build on the high knoll next the Heffron Homestead at 72 Greenwood Street, because they wanted to be in the beautiful pine grove it afforded. One hundred of these pines were uprooted in those few hours! That year, too. the old Railroad Depot was moved from the end of Powder House Lane (then Depot Street), to 20 Lake Street, where it was turned into a charming home, but the sturdy building was firmly on its new foundation and successfully defied the elements. The spire of the First Parish rising above the trees on the Common was an inevitable target for the winds, which neatly sheared off the steeple and spread it like kindling over the green. Clark's 'new' ice house on Lake Street, which had been built on the site of the original one long ago, was laid flat by wind and falling trees, but its years as a storehouse for Farm Pond ice had passed, and the old boards were soon earmarked to help in the rebuilding of a devastated home down the road-a-piece. The 1754 Parker home at 112 Farm Road, built on land abutting the ice house, had just been reconstructed on its new cellar hole after being moved, in carefully numbered pieces, from Connecticut. Mrs. Esther G. Parker remembers the day vividly. "The rebuilding of our home had progressed so that by September 21st, the sides were up and the roof was on, when a hurricane broke and uprooted thousands of trees. "Our new old house went down, too, with the towering pines piled like jackstraws on it and around it. The following morning, crawling under and over broken tree trunks, we went looking for our house, but it was hard to find as there was not a stick of it left standing. "The sun came out and we looked up from the desolation and there, not far away, sparkled Farm Pond; at least the mighty wind had given us a view of the water! "Those trees had to be removed, and sawed up, and the house rebuilt once again, A lumberman was recommended, and it wasn't long before he had installed a sawmill. Then two camps were built
74 Sherborn and a number of French-Canadian lumberjacks moved into them for the winter. One hundred seventy-five thousand feet of lumber was cut from our fallen trees." The Town Report of that year tells of the loss of many beautiful trees along our roads, some over 100 years old, and urged a planting program to benefit future generations. The following spring, 21 sugar maples were set out throughout the town. Conservation is nothing new in Sherborn. Never had the town put her sawmill and lumbering teamwork to such a test as during the clean-up after this storm. Over 400,000 feet were cleared from the forest lying in the southwest of town, and it was Jim Leland, Ward Parks and Ira Ward, each with his strong team, who did that whole area in an unbelievably short time. The big blow hit Stannox Farm on Nason Hill Road, felling all the trees in the Jonathan Orchard, the apple for which the place was noted, and such a large number of great pines that 20,000 feet of board were milled from them. This lumber was sold, but the 75 cords of hardwood which had to be cleared kept the many fireplaces supplied for some time. In January of 1934, J. Lathrop Motley, son of the great historian, had bought Stannox Farm from the bank which had acquired it by foreclosure. His foreman, Mr. Frank C. Skinner, is now a young 95, and he can recall serving on the Advisory Board. He also remembers the excitement which occurred at the farm the fall before he moved there, when it was owned by the bank. This was another time that Sherborn was featured in the Boston papers. The Federal Agents raided the biggest still operation which had ever been discovered in Massachusetts, and it was at Stannox Farm in Sherborn! The huge vats were set up in an old building a great distance from the entrance, and the cover-up was a herd of cows. Who would ever consider that the 40-gallon milk cans weren't just for milk! Expense money was granted the fledgling Planning Board,
The Heritage 75 because there was concern about the growth of the town, and everyone felt it should be handled in an orderly fashion, with the building code and master plan of first importance. The WPA, in its final years, used its manpower to conserve and restore shade trees, and the Town Forest Committee was acquiring a continuous belt of greenland, to be preserved in its natural and unchanged condition, which would comprise 500 acres by Sherborn's Tercentenary Year. Civilian Defense had never been such a factor as it was in World War II, when fear of being bombed was very real. Sherborn was divided into districts with a Warden appointed for each. His most important duty was to police his area nightly to be sure all lights were 'blacked-out.' Poultry men were having such difficulty with thievery that they wanted to leave their hen and turkey houses lighted to deter the robbers and comfort the chicks. They did their best to cover the innumerable windows, but a running battle was waged right on home soil between them and their neighbors who acted as Civilian Defensemen, The Honor Roll listing all World War II veterans was placed in the diamond of land opposite the Memorial Statue. It was a wooden frame, faced with glass, and would be replaced by a simple stone in 1969, with the legend, "Honoring Sherborn Citizens who served in the military to preserve man's freedom." 76 Sherborn fire protection had to be provided and, in 1942, the Call Fire Department was established under the General Laws, Chapter 48. This decade also saw a fine, new firehouse built on North Main Street after another Act of the Legislature authorized the Town to use a piece of the playground land for this purpose. The truck added to the force was needed, for in 1947, there were extremely hazardous fire conditions caused by an extensive drought; so hazardous, indeed, that police patrols combed the wooded areas and all Town lands were closed. In 1945, Sherborn lost a local public official who possessed a judicious mind and an abiding sense of humor with a keen discernment of people and affairs. Ira T. Ward, a Selectman for fourteen years, was best known for his ability at Town Meeting to take the sting out of any bitter debate by a deft remark or harmonizing jibe, much in the manner of the famous Will Rogers. The Selectmen have always made an occasion of the 'perambulating' of the Board, an ancient term which refers to their official inspection of the Town boundaries. The Town Fathers of the older of the two towns, sharing a common border, invite the Fathers of the other town to perambulate the bounds on a particular day. Invitation is tantamount to an order. Together they hike along brook and through woodlot, with brush and paint bucket, and re-mark the old granite boundstones, set out when the lines were first surveyed. Several of the old terms which are found in town government today derive from the usage of the early days of the Town of Sherborn, or before. Fence Viewers, numbering three, were first appointed by the Selectmen in 1680, and, though called upon only three tunes in the last couple of decades, their decisions are vital to the parties involved, and important to the Town in settling boundary disputes. Sometimes differences occurred years ago about the bounds of properties separating the original homestead
The Heritage 77 and a parcel set off for a son or daughter. A generation or two later, when the properties were owned by two parties not closely related, an indefinite boundary could raise hob with the serenity of a neighborhood. And so it did, near the site of Sherborn's first sawmill on Course Brook (54 and 60 Brush Hill Road). The instrument on which Sherborn's Fence Viewers and the two litigants "interchangeably set their hands" settled the matter in definite terms to hold forever, "Be it remembered that on this 2nd day of April 1806 Asa Cozzens and Nathan Stratton settled lines between their home Farms in Sherburne and agree that the fence as it now stands shall be the lines between their said Farms." It was all routinely done, after all opinions had been considered and judgment carefully employed, by the duly appointed Fence Viewers, Calvin Sanger, Lawson Buckminster and Samuel Bullard. A Field Driver is still appointed to round up stray cattle and livestock and has traditionally been the law enforcement officer of the town. In former times, such animals were actually impounded, in a walled area provided for just this purpose. The Hog Reeve was first chosen in 1721, serving in the same capacity with regard to the swine that the Field Driver did to the cattle. Because of the absence of any active duties connected with this office in later years, such an appointment was considered largely as a joke, and it was the custom for several years to appoint to it the most recently married young man in town. Sherborn's first two Pounds were on the Plain (near the Pine Hill Cemetery gate), and were probably of logs, laid together in log-house style (erected 1694 and 1741). The 'Widder Mary West' was the first in town chosen to take care of ye Pound. The third one (1755) was of stone and situated on the green, but was considered unsatisfactory because of its proximity to the church. The present pound was built in 1770, by Captain Sanger, who was given definite specifications to follow and "the old hinges that belonged to the old Pound for the new Pound." (Pound Hill, South Main Street) In the early days of Sherborn, the Pound was a necessity, for cattle and horses fed on common land, while swine and other animals ran at large, the swine often by direct vote of the Town. (One such vote in 1679, specified they be 'yoaked and ringed.') Ofttimes, cattle were brought from other towns to graze here, so that in 1707, a tax was laid on all so taken. Although today the pound is obsolete so far as actual use is concerned, the laws
78 Sherborn
which established it are still in force, modified, but substantially the same as in old English times. One department, so much a part of Town affairs in the 1800s, is now State run. The Overseers of the Poor, who had functioned as an appointed body to attend to the care of the poor, had their name changed to the Board of Public Welfare in 1925, under an Act of the Legislature, From 1952 to 1968, they were elected annually until July of that year, when the State assumed the management and concomitant responsibilities of welfare operations, and, since Sherborn's Board was considered only a 'one-man office' its total functions and its Agent were transferred to the Natick Board of Public Welfare. An important segment of the life of the Town has always revolved around the Post Office. Though not run by the Town in its corporate capacity, it was always a Sherbornite who was the Postmaster. Although the Continental Congress created a postal service for the colonies just days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and appointed Benjamin Franklin as the first
The Heritage 79 Postmaster General, Sherborn had its first Postmaster in the person of Calvin Sanger, who established the Post Office in his store at 12 Washington Street, in 1819. A four-horse coach then ran from Milford to Boston, passing through Sherborn about nine in the morning on its way to the city, and making the return trip the next afternoon. Postage was determined by the distance a letter was to travel, and the postmaster, using his large quill pen, wrote on the folded letter the fee paid. The Boston and Worcester Railroad was completed in 1830, and the coach then ran to the depot established on this line in Natick. An even greater improvement in communications came in 1869, when the Mansfield and Framingham Railway was laid through Sherborn, giving us direct mail service. The job of Postmaster paid so little, that in small towns it was usually held by a storekeeper, who operated it as a sideline. So it was in Sherborn, with few exceptions, until May 27, 1965, when the present brick edifice was dedicated at 29 North Main Street. During the first administration of Grover Cleveland, Joseph W. Barber was appointed the first Postmaster at South
Sherborn, and set up shop in the railroad station, and soon after in a corner of the sitting room in his homestead at 46 Forest Street. He had a fine, high desk and stool and about 25 mail boxes, and here the boxes still remained when some of today's oldsters were youngsters. In the late 1800s, the Post Office was in the Clark Store, which stood on the lawn of the present Office Building, and along with the post office, housed the customary country store in one long room, where every kind of merchandise was sold indiscrimi-
80 Sherborn
nately. The smell of shoes, print, codfish and whale oil mingled with the clothing in which Clark did a brisk business. The potbellied stove surrounded by a few chairs and a bench gave evidence of the great political questions discussed here. (Politics entered into the appointment of Postmasters then, as they were changed as often as the President.) At the dawn of 1900, the Post Office stood in the fork of the two routes, 16 and 27, in a building which housed a store and a carriage shop
a forerunner of the shopping center. Jeremiah Hawes had been Postmaster when Sherborn celebrated her Two Hundredth Anniversary, and his son Alfred now took over. Six years later, Alfred's wife became Postmistress, when he was seriously injured in a fall from a tree. White-haired Edith Hawes endeared herself to the old in town, through the selfless way she cared for her invalid husband; and to the young, in the kindly way she helped them make the momentous decision of what sweets to choose from the penny candy case in her store.
The Heritage 81 Another important appointive position in the Post Office Department was that of the mail messenger, whose duty it was to carry the mail sacks between the post office and the railroad station, which then stood at the end of Depot Street, now Powder House Lane. Lenny Holbrook, whose father had had a blacksmith shop next to their home at 5 South Main Street, held this job and he needed it, for he and his sixteen-year-old sister, Celia, were orphaned and trying to care for themselves and four younger children. Lenny entered a Fourth of July bicycle race from Millis which was to finish at the Post Office, but he faltered and fell over into his own yard just short of the finish line, the victim of heart failure. The town stood behind Celia, for they knew she would make do and someone with a little political pull saw that she got the appointment her brother had held, though she no doubt was the first feminine mail messenger and perhaps the youngest. She carried the sack over her shoulder each morning before attending Sawin Academy, and there are those who say she used a wheelbarrow for the sacks at Christmas time. In 1908, Rural Free Delivery came to the north and west of Sherborn, with Framingham taking care of the delivery, and the Government implementing it for Sherborn two years later. The last of those who carried mail to the whole town before it was divided into two routes was Frank Goulding, a milkman turned rural carrier. He traveled at first with a horse and wagon, and when he graduated to a Model T, he would never admit that it was an improvement. Joseph Blanchard of 27 Washington Street was sworn in as Mail Messenger by Postmistress Mrs. Hawes, and carried the mail between the depot and the post office three times a day through his high school years. At Christmas time or during bad storms, he remembers he helped Frank with the deliveries and plowed through hip-deep snow down the long driveway to Mary Lizzie Ware's on Bullard Street. During the 1938 hurricane, when he was sorting mail by candlelight in 'Jackson's Store,' which stood where the Chevron station is now, John C. Jackson received his permanent appointment as Postmaster, signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt. He removed the post office into his family's store, and he found that, as the mail increased in volume, he had to enlarge the building and finally provide separate quarters for the post office. Upon Mr. John Jackson's retirement in 1963, Mrs. Doris Merrill, who lives in the house at 5 South Main Street where Celia Holbrook lived when she was Mail Carrier, was Acting Postmaster
82 Sherborn until April 1965, when Lawrence B. Connelly, our present Postmaster, was appointed shortly before the Post Office moved into its new home in the shopping center.
The changing seasons are part of the charm which is Sherborn's special character and, though all of New England also experiences them, each seasonal change seems better able to display its beauties here. Indian paint brush daubs patches of orange on the hillsides when the apple blossoms begin floating to the orchard floors, and soon the feathery plant of the loosestrife fills the swales of town with misty lavendar blossoms in such abundance as to seem almost forever. Queen Anne's lace, mingled with blue gentian, abounds the roadsides in the hot summer days, and the spires of the golden-rod bursting into bloom herald the opening of school. A fall drive around the town's winding roadways proves that it is a 'mini-Mohawk Trail,' for many of the roads are lined with colorful sugar maples and, too, the sweep of the views across the meadows and hillsides is still extensive and breathtakingly beautiful. An ice storm, and these views are magically filled with millions of many-faceted diamonds, sparkling in the cold sunlight against the dark blue of a winter sky, each encrusted twig a gem. When Martha Louise Loomis did her study of "Ferns and Flowering Plants of Sherborn, Grown without Cultivation" in the nineteen-teens, she had assistance in identifying all the plants growing naturally around town from the eminent Doctors Joseph A. Cushman of the Boston Society of Natural History, and Benjamin L. Robinson of the Gray Herbarium of Harvard College. Many of the plants she describes in her handwritten book were enjoyed by the settlers or utilized as herbs, and they are still here in our meadows and on our hillsides for us to enjoy. The landscape has undergone changes in these centuries. Many of the large pine forests, giving way to the settlers' plantings, were later overgrown by hardwoods. Pine Hill is one of these forests, and the mighty oak there comprises nearly 90 per cent of what has returned, with white, red and pitch pines and Canadian hemlock accounting for a very small percentage of the large trees. Even the hickories, white ash, maples and other hardwoods outnumber them. Perhaps the large areas of small white pine in the next several years will help Pine Hill to be again properly named, Eliot W. Taylor, who was born in the family homestead at 30 North Main Street, has followed in the footsteps of earlier Sherborn ornithologists, Albert P. Morse and Alfred Hawes, 83
84 Sherborn and is an authority in this field, writing and lecturing for the Audubon Society. He has been most particularly interested in the birds of this area, and has traced the results brought about by botanical changes and some minor climatic adjustments. "The first settlers found many wild turkeys and passenger pigeons in the New England forests, but as the forests were cut down these birds disappeared as did the bald eagles and ospreys. Of the few bald eagles spotted in Massachusetts each winter in the past few years, none has been seen in Sherborn, but a few osprey still nest along the southern New England coast and in their migrating will sometimes spend a few days fishing in Farm Pond or Little Pond m the spring and fall. Black, mallard and wood ducks are common nesters and in recent years Canadian geese have preempted the island at Farm Pond. Heath hens heavily populated the open fields in the mid-seventeen hundreds, great for the table but the bane of the farmer, and the last of them was seen on Martha's Vineyard in the 1920s. "Chinese ring-necked pheasants were introduced in this country at the turn of this century and have become our most common game bird, often seen running or flying low across the fields and roads or feeding close to our homes in the cold winter months when cracked corn is thrown. When walking through the woods we occasionally come upon ruffed grouse that spring into the air and fly away on loud whirring wings, or hear the calls of bob-white quail. "Today, it is possible to see as many as 180 species of birds in a year in Sherborn; about 30 are residents the year round, 90 nest here in season, 20 are winter visitors and 60 are spring and fall migrants. From May through July, many of the nesting birds can be heard singing, but the loveliest calls are those of the two or three pairs of hermit thrushes who sing in the early morning and the evening twilight hours. Our most common nesting birds are robins, red-eyed vireos, Baltimore orioles, rufous-sided towhees, red-winged blackbirds, common grackles, wood thrush, scarlet tanagers, eastern kingbirds, phoebes, tree swallows and barn swallows. "In 1850, eight pair of European house finches (English sparrows) were released in New York, and 40 years later 120 starlings were set free at Central Park in New York. These birds spread from coast to coast and are now our most common year-round birds, along with the blue jay, common crow, black-capped chickadee, downy woodpecker, white-breasted nuthatch, the rock dove (pigeon), and mourning dove.
Of Thee We Sing 85 "Perhaps you have had an experience with a pair of our nesting chimney swifts, who are partial to the large chimneys quite common in town. The nest over the fireplace in the north room at the Dowse Memorial Office Building, from May until late August, causes momentary interruptions in the Selectmen's meetings held there because of the loud chattering as the swifts fly in and out to their young. "Red-tailed, broad-winged and sparrow hawks are our three most common raptors, and sometimes screech, great horned and barred owls can be heard calling at night. "As farms give way to house lots, the few nesting bobolinks and eastern meadowlarks are disappearing. However, in the past two years cardinals, mockingbirds and tufted titmice have extended their northeastern range and are now common year-round birds in Sherborn. Although 20 years ago whip-poor-wills and eastern bluebirds were common summer nesters, this year only three of the former were heard calling at the end of Parks Drive, and the one remaining pair of bluebirds raised seven young on Woodland Street. There has been great excitement during the past three years, for a pileated woodpecker has been seen at the Audubon Sanctuary near South Street. These birds are almost as large as crows, with a black and white body and a large red crest. "These are the changes we have seen in the bird population, as the town has changed from a farming community." Sherborn is a haven for birds who 'winter over,' because birdfeeders are an adjunct of almost every household, and birds are a part of the conversation. The albino-headed chickadee, who was visitor for several seasons at Maple Street, has, this Tercentenary year, been surpassed by an albino pheasant who feeds with a flock of twelve in the meadows on Woodland Street. Sherborn's marshes are fed by her many bubbling brooks, and her hills remain covered with timber. Brush Hill, rising a hundred feet above the Plains of Sherborn, is our highest elevation and affords a glorious panorama of the countryside even without benefit of the tower which mounted its crest in the last century. Our town boasts twenty other hills high enough to appear on the geodetic map, but only eight of them bear names. Mt. Misery lies west of Farm Pond, Pine Hill behind Pine Hill School, Nason Hill in the Nason Hill Road and Mill Street area, and Pocasset Hill to the east of Nason Hill Road. Maple Street has Dirty Meadow Hill on the one side between it and Washington Street, and Paul's Hill on the other side towards Hunting Lane.
86 Sherborn In the north of town lies Peter's Hill, with an elevation of 290 feet, which figured in the exchange of land with the Natick Indians back in 1674, and got its name from the Indian, Peter Ephraim, who retained his farm on it, and gained the rights of a resident of the new town. The six brooks in town, which lace the countryside and help the gardeners to boast of a green thumb, prove to be as independent as the people they serve. It was noted many years ago that Course Brook and Indian Brook, which each has its source atop Brush Hill, flowed in opposite directions! This didn't deter the settlers from placing mills on each of them, however. In those early days, Course Brook was called Chestnut, and Indian Brook was sometimes Sawin to honor Thomas Sawin who had built the first gristmill for the Indians on this brook after it crosses the Natick line. Dirty Meadow Brook is a little stream which connects the meadow of that name on the western side of Washington Street with the Brown Meadow surrounding Mill Pond. Dirty Meadow Brook is said to have been so named because of the tenacious mud of the place, but it was referred to in old documents as 'Duty Meadow.' Long ago, Brown Meadow Brook was dammed to form Mill Pond, and an early generation of Lelands built their sawmill at the sluiceway on Mill Street. At the upper dam of Mill Pond, Alex Barker had a mill for the manufacture of trunnels, used exclusively in the building of the early homes and barns. Brown Meadow Brook flows below the mill site on Mill Street through a little valley of considerable beauty, with steep grassy walls, and continues across Hollis Street and Nason Hill Road, where its banks rise steeply and are wooded to form a lovely glen. The stream then winds through meadows, crosses Bullard Street in Holliston and enters Boggestow Pond. At a point yet further west of Dirty Meadow and Brown Meadow, Dopping Brook was chosen to form the boundary of the two towns when Holliston was set apart from Sherborn, in 1724. Perhaps the most colorful history flows with Sewell's Brook as it crosses Maple and Washington Streets into a meadow which has been known as Sewell's Meadow since before 1700. The brook reaches the Charles River after it has crossed South Main, Goulding and finally Forest Streets at the site of Thomas Holbrook's cider mills. Samuel Sewell became Chief Justice of the Colony, and through his marriage had inherited a large grant of Sherborn
Of Thee We Sing 87 land which included all of this meadow as well as much of what is the center of town. The home he maintained here, and which he often visited, stood with its end to the road and facing this brook (102 South Main Street). His fame spread far when he presided at the Salem Witch Trials, and though his daughter sold all these holdings when she inherited at the time of his death, they were to remain his brook and his meadow forever more. A century after his death an historian would write, "It seems as if all the old farms touched on some part of Sewell's meadow." Many of our lowlands become tiny ponds in the spring rains, and, along with small year-round ponds, prove helpful in retaining the water table of a town dependent on its wells. Some of these ponds are man-made and others are too small to have appeared on our old maps.
88 Sherborn Swamp Pond was large enough, and did appear on the old maps as it straddled Farm Road near Lake Street. Deep in the woods to the north of it lies Little Pond, which is now the center of Little Pond Wildlife Sanctuary. Although deer are now its largest and fox its most savage animals, the scenery and habitat around Little Pond have hardly changed since Indian days. Ducks, geese and other waterfowl are its greatest wildlife specialty. The pond can be fished for perch, bass, pickerel, and other panfish, and is superb for fishing in winter through the ice. Henry Channing, late of Sherborn, donated the 273 acres which form this Sanctuary to the Massachusetts Audubon Society. He had first become aware of Little Pond and all those ducks when a student at Harvard and an enthusiastic gunner. "My brother and I rented a shack at Little Pond," he said. "We would come out for the night, get up before dawn for a little duck hunting which was awfully good, make ourselves some breakfast, walk to the road, and catch the 7:19 train from Sherborn to the city." Mr. Channing bought his first piece of Sherborn land around Little Pond in 1901, and subsequently, when the lots added up to large tracts, he began giving them back to the public. His first gift was to the Town of Sherborn, and was a stretch of high cliffs and rock ledges bordering the Charles River. This proved to be the beginning of the more than 500 acres of Town Forest. When he completed his last gift of the Little Pond Wildlife Sanctuary to Audubon in 1963, it did not quite abut the Town Forest, so he joined them together with the deed of a wide right of way. The Little Pond Sanctuary terrain consists mainly of beautiful woods and marshes, with two ponds: Duck Pond, a gem tucked away in a hollow, is much smaller than Little Pond which has more than 25 acres of water surface. There are brooks, too. Among them, the names Indian and Eel Pot suggest correctly that this was once a happy hunting ground for the Indians. Also, on the south margin of this pond is a mineral spring, which was highly prized by the Indians in former days for its medicinal qualities. There are about sixteen miles of trails which were kept open for many years by Mr. Channing himself "with no trouble at all," he insisted, in an interview given shortly before his death. Each year he simply rode through once on horseback, carrying a pair of clippers and clipping back the young growth as he jogged along. The donor did not expect the Society's guardianship to change things much, because the public had always been welcome and
Of Thee We Sing 89
would now continue to enjoy this sylvan retreat. Nature provided so bountifully, that no planting was needed to attract wildlife, and the usual animals are there in abundance there is even an occupied coon tree! In the Acts of 1946 of the General Court under Chapter 374, provision had been made for a right of way for pedestrians to enter the sanctuary from Farm Road near the Lake Street crossing. The foot trails around the pond are excellent for observation of woodland birds and plants, and in winter they are delightful for crosscountry skiing and snowshoeing. The Stillmans, Mr. Channing's neighbors on the north of Little Pond, have since given a large contiguous acreage, lying in Natick, to Audubon. This is known as Broadmoor Sanctuary. On the south side of Farm Road and to the east of Lake Street is still another jewel in Sherborn's crown. The history of Farm Pond begins before the history of the Town of Sherborn, for
90 Sherborn it was a natural campground for the Indian tribes, providing an abundance of fish and game. Because it was fed by springs, it offered beautifully clear water at all seasons, and it was close to the river, an important avenue of transportation for the tribes. In their deeds to the settlers, the Indians reserved to themselves and their heirs the rights which they held so dear concerning their use of this body of water. Farm Pond was considered a lake, and so designated on all maps in the early centuries, and it was so-called by residents well into this century. Its area of 124 acres clearly puts it in the Great Pond classification. Shortly after the middle 1800s, there were recreation areas situated on the shores which catered to people who came from miles around in their buggies for a day of fun at Farm Lake. These Groves provided pleasure boats for sailing and rowing, and even included steam sightseeing launches in the fleet. The picnic and game areas were busy all through the warm weather, and the pavilion provided bands for evening dancing. In 1896, the Town bought a small strip of shore on the west bank of the Lake, but before they had an opportunity to make use of this ownership, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts put the quietus on the good times by taking over all water rights. In 1908, at a Special Town Meeting, Sherborn voted to petition the Legislature about this problem. It was also voted at this meeting, and for the first time, that the Selectmen should employ counsel to defend this bill. The Great and General Court did not look favorably on Sherborn's petition, counsel or no, and piping was laid under the Charles River to the Medfield State Hospital with a watergate where the piping started at Farm Pond. Swimming was no longer allowed because the water was being used for drinking. The Town had stocked the pond with different kinds of fish at various times during the 1800s, and some felt that the fishing should, therefore, be reserved to residents. However, the statutes and the common law provide that such ponds "...be open to all inhabitants of the Commonwealth for fishing purposes," and the guiding hand of the Selectmen had to temper the wish of the people in this matter. When the State took over the water rights, the right to fish and to cut ice was not impaired and, it is said, the temptation to swim was not always resisted either. Burke's Plain gave ready access to the natural beach, on Town-owned land, and a quiet dip
Of Thee We Sing 91 on an unbearably hot day, with no harm done. Farm Lake ice was in such demand that a new ice house had to be built, and the seasonal job of ice-cutting was a boon to many farmers. From time to time, wells were drilled at the State Hospital so that by 1935 the water drawn from Farm Pond was no longer used for drinking. On petition, the Legislature, in a unique action, empowered the Selectmen to enact two classes of rules. The first had to do with the construction and maintenance of facilities and required no State approval. The second had to do with recreational activities in or on the pond, "which shall be open to all inhabitants of the Commonwealth" and, as they relate to fishing, are subject to the approval of the Department of Natural Resources. In all other respects, they are subject to approval by the Department of Public Works. This approval of the rules and charges as set up by the Board of Selectmen in 1935, was duly obtained, and the townspeople wisely do not wish to see these altered. An exchange of the parcels of shoreland which the Town had acquired in 1896 and 1917, was arranged for the land which now comprises the Reservation. The Town, for its part, prepared a public beach and parking area, and saw that a swimming program was provided and that lifeguards were on duty. The fine swimming instruction program has produced competitive swimmers whose performances have made the Sherborn Swim Team renowned. A few sails appeared on the horizon, precursors of the fleet to come. In 1957, there was a move by the State to create a large park to include all of Farm Pond and Rocky Narrows. Parks are not held by a town in its private corporate capacity, but as an agent for the State for the benefit of the public at large. The Selectmen named a committee to study the matter in light of the interest expressed by the State Department of Natural Resources to take this area over as a State Forest. The committee came back with suggestions, and the move was made to forestall all such action by increasing the Town's bathing and parking facilities to include the rest of the Town-owned land. The second or lower parking area was leveled, and the beach enlarged to its boundary with the land for which it had been exchanged, and including a gift of land made at this time by Mr. Richard Saltonstall. In 1960, a group of contiguous landowners gave a parcel to allow the improvement of the Town boat landing. The Sherborn Yacht Club was started a decade ago and its racing program for 470s and Sunfish provide fine sailing or viewing
92 Sherborn all through the long season. Taking every advantage of the switchy winds bouncing off the shores around the pond sharpens the ability of the skippers and proves most helpful to those who go on to national competition. Though the history of Farm Pond reads like a stormy voyage, the Pond presents the same tranquility so attractive in times past. Homes which bound it are scarcely visible, and some of the greatest pines and oaks towering on the banks must have been part of the woodland three centuries ago when Morse chose his homesite nearby. The Pond's depths, like so many of the Town's assets, have yet to be plumbed.
Our peaceful town with ancient heritage is such a living link between past and future that we may overlook its vital contribution to the present. It is Sherborn's citizens, while pursuing their business and professional careers about town, in Boston, the Route 128 Complex and its environs, and even around the world, who take the time to serve as members of the Town's Boards and Committees. They, as well as the rest of the townspeople, are of one mind to keep the town looking and acting as a unique country town. Following are mini-histories of our old, and not so old, Boards and Commissions. A roster which recognizes those who are holding a position in which they have served continuously for more than a decade is included. Selectmen who have served the Town of Sherborn since the first Board was formed four years after the incorporation are also recorded herewith. 93
94 Sherborn BOARD OF SELECTMEN Since 1960, the population of Sherborn has burgeoned with the resultant complexities of managing a larger community falling on the Selectmen. This can be appreciated when you look into current Town Reports and see listed there the many boards, commissions and officers whose undertakings were all once handled by the Selectmen. The first Board of five men, three hundred years ago, was all departments unto itself, with one of their members even serving as Town Clerk. They wanted complete participation of the voters on all decisions, however, and in 1679, it was voted that, "If any of the Inhabitants shall neglect to attend Town meeting, appointed and being warned of it, shall be under the penalty of 3s. 4d. for every such offence, to be for Town use." After the initial ten-year term, the five Selectmen were elected annually until 1946, when the term of office was extended to three years. During the traumatic year of 1776, the Town named seven men to the Board, and the Chairman had the great honor of ordering that the 'Declaration of Independence' be written into the Town Report, and it was so done. The next year, their number was again dropped to five and, since 1844, it has been the three-man Board we have today. The History of Sherborn is a history of its Board of Selectmen, for upon the incorporation of one came the formation of the other, and to know the Town's history is to see the Selectmen as the Fathers of the Town. During the infancy of each office or board, the Selectmen have initially chaired it and helped to set up the guidelines before others were appointed or elected to take over. Thus, at the 1883 Town Meeting the Selectmen were elected for the ensuing year, and they were also voted to be the Highway Surveyors as well as the Board of Health. As all phases of Town government became more involved, various departments administered by the Selectmen were spun off and formed into separate boards or commissions. Five years ago, the administrative work load had become so demanding for the Board that the Selectmen hired an Administrative Assistant to coordinate the departments and execute Town business under their direction.
Town Positions 95 TOWN CLERK The office of Town Clerk was filled only a few minutes after the first Selectmen were chosen, for from their own number of five, they formally elected Obadiah Morse as the Town Clerk in 1679. Obadiah had been keeping the records of the Town until such time as an election could be held, so with his experience, he was a good choice. (Tradition has it that Obed Lane is thus named because he asked that a way be provided from his home, which stood at the rear of 23 Lake Street, to the Meeting House.) The Board served for ten years, without reelection, and Obadiah Morse was the Clerk during this time. Town officers were then voted into office yearly, and the first Town Clerk served again for a total of 20 years. Many fine men filled this office when it was held by a member of the Board, and when it became a separate elective position, but no one came within a country mile of Obadiah's record until, within our own time, Elijah C. Barber stepped down from the office of Town Clerk after 53 years of continuous service. In that year of 1961, he was named 'Life Tenure Town Clerk Emeritus.' During his term the records of the Town were kept in clear penmanship, and a typewriter was rarely used. He did business at his home (15 North Main) at the convenience of whomever wished to see him, and. after he retired from his trade of house painting, he was available all the time. He had been born in his family's homestead near Farm Pond, had first trod the dusty road to the old Center School, which stood where the present one is, on a sultry September day in 1882, to be taught in the school's one room by the teacher who was responsible for all 35 pupils. His years at the old Farm District School meant he had no walk at all, but then he was again walking back to town to attend Sawin Academy, and he was mighty proud that the Vice President of the United States, Henry Wilson, had, m fact, attended its dedication exercises just three years before he, Elijah, was born. His career no doubt paralleled that of many Town Clerks before and after him: at the age of 22 he stepped into public life when he was elected to the Board of Public Welfare, in 1898, and, after the turn of the century, to the position of Selectman for five terms. When asked in later life how he came to be Town Clerk, he recalled, "There was an old fellow in the position in 1908, and they wanted a younger man so folks around here asked if I'd go
96 Sherborn for the job. I took a flyer at it and held it ever since." In all those years, no one opposed him. Among his duties as Clerk, Mr. Barber noted in an interview at the time of his retirement, were the keeping of the Town Meeting records, and those of births, deaths and marriages. In his wry way, he said that the marriage license fee jumped from one to two dollars in 1916, and had lagged behind inflation ever since. When he announced his intended retirement from public life at the Special Town Meeting in January of 1961, Mr. Elijah C. Barber told the assembly, "I have served with 40 different Selectmen, five Town Treasurers and six Tax Collectors. I am pleased to testify that they have all been citizens of excellent character who have served the Town with faithfulness and devotion. I have regarded every citizen as a personal friend, and have received their warm personal friendship in return. It is with a feeling of deep regret that I approach the termination of my years of service." Just so might Obadiah Morse have spoken to the townspeople assembled at Town Meeting in 1704. Walter J. Connolly's term of office as present Town Cleric has spanned the period of the Town's greatest growth and has afforded him the opportunity to run the gamut of activity, in a short decade, that his predecessors experienced during longer terms. MODERATOR "You are likewise required to notify and warn all the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of Sherborn qualified by Law to vote in Town Affairs to meet at the public Meeting House in said Town on Monday, the Seventh Day of April next at two of the Clock in the Afternoon First to choose a Moderator. . ." And thus did the Warrant announce the choosing of a Moderator for each Town Meeting until 1922, when the Town first voted for a Moderator to remain in office for one year. Sherborn has few men to list as holders of this office in the past 50 years, however, for the Town has recognized the worth of those who have sought it and kept them long in office. During his first year as Moderator in 1925, Henry Bothfeld conducted what continues to hold the record as the shortest Town
Town Positions 97 Meeting. It was a Special Meeting, called for a particular purpose, and with courteous ability, the Moderator had finished the business with not more than 20 minutes passing between the time he banged down the gavel to call the meeting to order and his clear "I declare this Meeting adjourned." His daughter, Helen, later presumed to ask him not to hurry the proceedings quite so much. At the Town Meeting of 1945, everyone rose as a man, and with their continued applause, added their approval to the accolade expressed by the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen upon the retiring Moderator, Henry E. Bothfeld, "for his efficient and impartial services to the Town for the last twenty years." Following the tradition of the office, our present Moderator, Alvin C. Tyson, has equitably and with quiet competence served the Town of Sherborn through this most crucial decade. BOARD OF ASSESSORS No subject awakens such interest as that of taxation, and so it ever was, long before the colonists rose up against unfair taxation without representation. Sherborn had paid a tax to the colonial government, property being then as now the basis of taxation. After the Revolution and the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the debt incurred by that war had to be paid, so the assessments on the towns were greatly increased. In 1784, the Commonwealth had to apportion a tax of £140,000 on the towns still struggling to get on an even keel after the battering of the war years. The Treasurer and Receiver-General of the Commonwealth sent instructions that year to Asa Cozzens, Sherborn's Constable, to seize the goods and chattels of anyone who refused or neglected to pay on demand the sum assessed him, and after holding his possessions for four days without satisfaction, to sell them after 24-hour public notice. Anything left over in the sale beyond the tax levied could be returned to the owner. In hard times, the collector's unpopularity was assured. Mr. Cozzens had a pocket-size booklet of a few pages with a cover cut from a periodical of that day, sewn together with linen thread by the Assessors, who had listed alphabetically from their desk-sized sheets the Sherborn residents and the total tax each must pay. A bit later the work was divided among three constables and then there were three such pamphlets, each for a third of the town.
98 Sherborn In 1794, Congress assumed the State debt of Massachusetts and this put an end to unduly heavy assessments on the towns. Two years later, pounds were no longer to be in evidence, and the dollar appeared as the first insignia of American independence used in estimating the annual Town expenses. A man was taxed on his whole stock in trade, whether it be wood and lumber from his mill, leather for his whips or shoes, casks and the cider or vinegar in them, or goods he might have as a storekeeper. There was also a tax on money he had at interest, or on shares of stock he might be fortunate enough to possess. Since, after 1819, he was asked to take a solemn oath that the lists of his estate both real and personal were perfect and true under the law, it behooved him to search his mind carefully concerning his possessions. Here, the Assessor stood in the shoes of the IRS until 1913, when the Federal Income Tax Law was enacted. A Sherborn farmer was also taxed on his livestock, which was really a 'stock in trade' item separately handled, and though his work wagons were never included, his carriages were. Dwelling house, barns and outbuildings were each assessed, as were his parcels of land. The plot his buildings stood on was called a home lot. The rest of his holdings were categorized as, 'mowing, tillage, orchard, meadow, pasture, wood, sprout or bog' and even within this structure the productivity of a given acreage was considered in the evaluation. The Assessor walked a tight line wherein politics did not figure, and one who did a good job found himself holding the title year after year. From time to time after the Civil War, general revaluations were requested by the Assessors, and it was an increasingly difficult undertaking because of the number of buildings now involved. In 1898, there were 282 homes in town for the three-man Board to visit and reconsider. When the reassessment was completed, the widows' exemptions quietly applied and the hardship cases privately attended to, the town settled down to getting up the taxes by October first each year, until those Assessors decided reassessment needed to be done again, which was not to be until 1913. Only when the Annual Town Meeting is adjourned and the amounts voted by the townspeople to be expended on the various articles in the warrant are totaled, can the Assessors, using this as the major part of their numerator, and with the assessed valuation as a denominator, have the basis for setting the tax rate. Each of these amounts voted for is an account which will have to be paid.
Town Positions 99 During the trying years following the panic of 1929, the Town Fathers were urging the departments to retrench and hold down expenses, for as her people were in financial difficulties, so was the Town and in 1936, Sherborn ended the year $4000 in the red. Again the Selectmen published in their report that they wished the people would please regard their tax bill as they did their electric or telephone bill and pay it on time. The people made do as they had in other hard times during their history, and came through with only a few scars from the loss of homes through foreclosures, so extensively suffered in other parts of the land. This was due in part to the policy of the Board of Assessors. Sherborn has always been fortunate in the type of men who are attracted to the challenging job of Assessor, but the most industrious of men would have found it difficult, if not foolhardy, to attempt the reassessment of a town growing as fast as Sherborn was in the fifties. Consequently, Charles E. McCarthy, our present Chairman and a 20-year member of the Board of Assessors, requested the Town Meeting to hire a firm specializing in this work to handle the task of the reassessment which the Board felt was again needed. The cost was a consideration to the townspeople, but shortsighted they were not, and since that time our Assessors have had the benefit of professional expertise in assessing and maintaining a constant formula to complement their considerable task. TREASURER AND TAX COLLECTOR The office of Treasurer was extant under the Colonial government but the Treasurer of a town at that time was accountable to the Treasurer at Boston for the amount assessed to each land owner m his settlement. For the actual collecting of the taxes, constables were used, but in the Treasurer alone were vested certain powers in regard to this. When these powers were extended to the one who actually collected the taxes, the title 'Collector of Taxes' rightfully evolved to him. There were times when it was difficult to get a man particularly suited to this position.
100 Sherborn One story is told of a Sherborn Tax Collector, Civil War Captain Fletcher, who died at the age of ninety-three, in 1924. He had been left for dead on the battlefield for forty-eight hours, and not only lived to tell of it but to go into battle again. Shortly after his return to Sherborn from the South, the town wanted its taxes collected, and this indomitable man was elected to do the job. He did. He was not reelected. The term of the Tax Collector was changed to three years instead of one in 1946, as the Treasurer's has been in 1973. The Assessors having apportioned the taxes and committed them to the Collector in an expeditious fashion, it is then his responsibility to make collection as quickly as possible and get these monies into the Treasurer's hand at an early date. SCHOOL COMMITTEES Each District School in Sherborn was run by a Prudential Committee made up of residents of the District, so that the first School Committees of the 1820s had authority only over the care of the buildings. Their first report appeared in 1839, and that was a brief statement concerning the conditions of the buildings and a recommendation to parents not to send children under four years of age to winter school. One of the members of the School Committee who signed this report was the minister of the Pilgrim Church, Rev. Edmund Dowse, who would be a signer of these reports for 65 consecutive years. Many of the reports he wrote showed an excellent knowledge of schools and methods of education. The report of 1852, which was eight pages long and commented frankly on the good and bad features of the teacher's work in each of the seven districts, was published in conformity with a recent law requiring that the Committee either read a report in Town Meeting or cause it to be printed and distributed. When the autonomy of the districts was abolished by law in 1869, the School Committee was given the full responsibility of the schools. In 1877, during a time fraught with economic depression, the Town Meeting refused an additional sum requested for the school, and suggested that they too could economize as
Town Positions 101 others were doing. They did, by shortening the fall term and decreasing teachers' salaries. The unification of Sherborn's schools under the School Committee was realized in 1910, when Sawin Academy and Dowse High School became a public school by an Act of the Legislature. The Massachusetts Board of Education began a series of classifications of public high schools and the Committee was proud to announce in 1948 that Sherborn's high school was granted an 'A' rating by the State Commissioner of Education. The Sherborn School Committee today, which is responsible for the Center and Pine Hill Schools housing grades kindergarten through six, was increased to five members in 1961, The Regional District School Committee, which is comprised of six members, three of whom are from Sherborn, also have three-year terms and are responsible for grades seven through twelve, housed in the Regional buildings in Dover. Sawin Academy Trustees
Two old Sherborn families who remembered the Town Thomas Dowse, who had apprenticed in Sherborn as a leather dresser, went to Cambridgeport to live and started his own leather business in a more refined and fancy market, such as book bindings. Thomas was a self-educated man, a great reader, an intellectual and very successful in business. He was recognized by Harvard University and was given an Honorary L.L.D. degree. Thomas Dowse never married, and when he died in 1857, he left part of his property in the hands of his Executor to be applied for "Charitable, Scientific and Literary purposes." On March 22, 1858, the Executors made the following offer to the Selectmen of the Town of Sherborn:
His Executors accordingly offered the Town of Sherborn the sum of $5,000 on the following conditions:
102 Sherborn
At a Town Meeting in April 1858 the Town voted to accept the offer made by the Executors of the will of Thomas Dowse. The Town also voted 84-34 to build a Town House (our present Town Hall) with suitable accommodations for a High School, Town Meetings and other public purposes. This meant that the Town was obligated to pay the interest of $300 a year for the support of a Public High School and raise the necessary additional money to operate such a school for at least one term of four months each year. The Town fulfilled its obligation and conducted a High School on the ground floor of the Town House. The total cost of operating the High School in the year 1874was S411.07. The Town continued to vote the interest on the Dowse School Fund and apply it to the High School budget each year for almost 100 years. The Town Hall has served us well and is still going strong. Here we held Town Meetings for a hundred years before we outgrew it, and today it houses our Police Headquarters and is used for Advisory Board hearings, voting and many special functions. Martha Sawin, who had never married, was residing in the family homestead in South Natick when she died, June 22, 1869. Her ancestor, Thomas Sawin, had lived in Sherborn and erected its first sawmill in 1680 before moving to Natick and building his homestead there. Martha thought so much of her family's associations with the town that she bequeathed the residue of her estate to the Town of Sherborn, a very generous gift. "To invest the same... and apply the income thereof to the support and maintenance of a Public School for the use and benefit of all the inhabitants of the Town of Sherborn. It is my wish that said school shall be named Sawin Academy
Town Positions 103 and that all the branches of learning shall be taught therein which are now required in the Commonwealth in High Schools, and also such other branches as the times and needs of the pupils may require." Sawin Academy was incorporated by Acts of the Legislature in 1871 and a beautiful brick building was erected in 1874 and dedicated in September of that year. The guest of honor at the dedication was the Honorable Henry Wilson, Vice President of the United States. Our High School moved from the Town House to the Sawin Academy building, and continued there for 75 years when, in 1949, we closed our High School and sent our students to Framingham. In 1962, the Town voted to acquire the property from the Trustees, demolished the building and landscaped the area. Our imposing new Library now stands on the site of the old Sawin Academy Building. If you look at the cornerstone at the northwest corner of the wall that goes around the Library, you will see a memorial carving: "Site of Sawin Academy and Dowse High School 1874-1962." There are five Sawin Academy Trustees elected by the Town. They no longer have any property to manage, but they have the responsibility of managing the Sawin Fund, which has a net worth of approximately S45,000. The details of the fund are published in our Annual Town Report. The income from the Fund goes to the support of our High School. The Town continues to enjoy the income from this generous gift which was established just 100 years ago.
104 Sherborn CEMETERY COMMISSIONERS When the Town accepted the responsibility to maintain all cemeteries in town in 1888, a Committee of the three Selectmen and the Town Clerk was appointed to choose rules and regulations concerning them, which were duly accepted the following year. In 1894, a Board of Trustees for Cemeteries, numbering three, was appointed to have full control, but the next year the Town voted to accept Chapter 264 of the General Laws of 1890, which meant that there would be three Commissioners of Cemeteries. These men are elected for three years and take care of all matters concerning the nine cemeteries within the bounds of the town. Although the older cemeteries are now inactive, they are well maintained and, along with Pine Hill Cemetery, have always been a credit to those who oversee them. Presently Warren L. Wheelwright and Peter F. Billings have each served more than 20 years as Commissioners. WATER COMMISSIONERS The first interest in a town water supply of any known record occurred in March of 1893. This interest resulted in the development of a water supply which served as the principal source until 1941. As then noted, it was not for the living, because it was placed in the Pine Hill Cemetery. A well was dug to a depth of 446 feet and was equipped with a pump and storage tank, but it can be used only as the temperature remains above the freezing point because its piping system is laid in a shallow trench. The Town Report of 1940 included the suggestion that water holes dug at strategic locations were necessary and in the following year Article 19 required "construction of additional water holes for fire protection purposes." In 1943, the Town installed a hydrant at the school well and the Selectmen joyfully reported that for only $100, a well dug at Farm Pond Reservation yielded twenty-nine gallons per minute. Our many brooks, streams, water holes, small ponds and Farm Pond, as well as the several Town wells, provide adequate sources for fire protection. The Water Commissioners, an agency established long ago, are three in number, each one elected for a term of three years. In recent years, water problems are a consideration of the Board of Health.
Town Positions 105 BOARD OF HEALTH The quality of life of a town is determined by the struggle to retain a delicate balance between matters best left to individual responsibility and needs of groups living together. For over two hundred years public health was not a matter of town record. Means of controlling communicable disease were not generally known; and apparently issues related to sanitation were a private matter. Although a facility to care for the elderly, disabled, indigent, and homeless was provided by Sherborn residents, it was viewed as a welfare obligation, not as a need for health care. By the late 1800s, residents voted to have the Selectmen appoint a Board of Health, whose major responsibility was to protect the school children of Sherborn. The Board's duties were to report communicable diseases in the Town's various schools, quarantine all exposed or ill children or families, and arrange for the periodic fumigation of exposed homes, barns, and schools. Between 1881 and 1891 the Board was appointed, dissolved and reappointed. It then disappeared until 1920, when the first health report actually appeared in the Town records. For another 37 years the Selectmen continued to protect the residents of Sherborn by enforcement of State health regulations regarding communicable disease control, licensure of milk purveyors, and development of water and milk testing services. The annual rabies vaccination clinic for Sherborn's dogs, which still operates today, also originated during this period. As the Town continued to grow, so did the problems. Managing health protection services became an increasingly important focus for many who were struggling to preserve Sherborn's rural character, while surrounding towns were rapidly giving in to the pressures of excessive suburban growth. The annual Town Meeting of 1957 was a turning point in Sherborn life; an independent Board of Health was established. The following years saw many changes
measures were taken to retain individual freedoms and preserve natural resources while introducing sufficient restraints to protect the public health. In 1958, the Board adopted a series of regulations for sewage disposal control and water supply protection. In addition, the Board contracted for garbage collection services, and attempted to extend the life of the town dump by developing a tighter control on methods of solid waste disposal.
106 Sherborn The responsibilities of the three-member Board of Health have grown tremendously during the past decade. These now include the management of our present dump site, obtained in 1960; approval of all septic disposal systems and water supply sources; Farm Pond water and sanitation facilities, and the health protection of all Sherborn school children through water, milk and food service inspection. The Board of Health will continue to be a vital part of Sherborn's future growth and welfare. PLANNING BOARD In broad terms, the Planning Board's duty is to represent the Town's interest in management of land use policies. This is partly done through local administration of the Sub-division Control Law and a general over-view of the Zoning By-Laws. It has the further duty to advise the Town in the long-range planning of matters related to land use. In the history of Sherborn, the Planning Board is a late-comer. The Selectmen suggested in 1936 that Sherborn accept provisions of the General Laws and establish a Planning Board. This was voted in 1937 with the first board elected in 1938, Its first members were Henry M. Channing, Chairman, Helen E. Farrar, Clerk, Clarence B. Gray, C. Arthur Dowse and G. Farrington Fiske. They got off to a roaring start when they were charged by the 1938 Town Meeting to study the matter of a municipal water supply. Its recommendation was that although no pressing need existed, long-range plans be made in the event public water was needed, possibly by acquiring well sites. The Town Meeting, however, chose to appoint a separate committee to investigate further. After two special Town Meetings during the year, the Town decided to pursue the matter no further. This decision has probably had as much to do with 'preserving Sherborn's rural character' as any other. During the first year of life the Planning Board also began work on a building code and a master plan. But one must not believe that all planning is
done by a Planning Board, as a review of some other events in the late
thirties shows. At the 1937 regular Town Meeting a committee was authorized
"to draft ordinances, by-laws, regulations or restrictions for the zoning of
the Town." Just three months later the Town voted to adopt a zoning by-law
that was one of the first in the Common-
Town Positions 107 wealth. Its uniform one-acre requirement for residential lots was modified in 1954 to provide for our present one, two and three acre zones. The concern for Sherborn's rural character is not new. It was only five years after Sherborn was incorporated, on October 13, 1679, that "It is voted and ordered that a twelve-acre lot shall be the lowest that shall be granted for a home lot, and 30 acres the highest. . ." Perhaps we should have left well enough alone. In 1935, legislation was adopted that permitted Sherborn to establish its beach on Farm Pond. The Town Forest came into being in 1938 with a gift from Henry M. Channing, the Chairman of Sherborn's first Planning Board. Under his leadership, the Town Forest was greatly expanded in the early 1940s. Today the Planning Board can do little more than administer the Subdivision Control Law. The first applications under this law came in 1954. Now there are at least 25 subdivisions and hundreds of individual lots for which records must be kept. Its operation is a far cry from the early 1960s, when the Chairman kept the Board's entire records in a cardboard box in his home. ADVISORY COMMITTEE In 1870, a group of citizens in Quincy appointed themselves as a committee to restore financial order in the affairs of that town. This activity marked the start of the practice of establishing independent finance committees to review and report on business matters to be brought before town meetings in the Commonwealth. The Legislature enacted enabling legislation recognizing such committees in 1910, and today each town with a valuation in excess of one million shall ". . .by by-law provide for the election or the appointment and duties of appropriation, advisory or finance committees, who shall consider any or all municipal questions for the purpose of making reports or recommendations to the town." (Chapter 39, Section 16 of the General Laws). In Sherborn, the Advisory Committee performs this function. The committee, in much its present form, was created under Chapter 4 of the By-Laws adopted by the Town Meeting of 1925. Concern with the financial affairs of the Town predates 1925, however. In their 1913 report, for example, the Selectmen noted
108 Sherborn that"...as to the expenditure of money: there is only one regular appropriation $1,000 for miscellaneous expenses over which the Selectmen have absolute control. In expenditures for other departments, our only right is the clerical one of drawing orders for properly approved bills." Again, the next year they commented, ". . .conditions in the business, industrial and financial world are unusual; the people are handicapped financially, as never before every extraneous expenditure [ought] to be cut out." Article 48 of the 1914 Town Meeting provided for a five-man Finance Committee to be appointed by the Selectmen for one year for the purpose of examining into all proposed appropriations and reporting to the Town prior to Town Meetings. In 1917, responsibility for appointing the Committee was transferred to the Moderator, membership was expanded to seven, and members were barred from holding elective or appointive offices having to do with the expenditure of town monies. When the 1924 Town Meeting failed to adopt a proposed new set of by-laws, it designated the Board of Selectmen to serve as Finance Committee for the ensuing year. Finally, in 1925, the By-Laws were adopted and the modern Advisory Committee came into being. The Committee comprises nine citizens, who are not elected or appointed officers of the Town and who serve for terms of three years each. No member may serve more than two consecutive terms, The principal duty of the Advisory Committee is to ". . .consider all matters of business included within the articles of any Warrant for a Town Meeting." (Town of Sherborn By-Laws, Chapter 4, Section 3). In carrying out this responsibility the Committee reviews the proposed budgets submitted by all Town departments, holds a public hearing on the articles in the Warrant and issues its written recommendations for action by the Town at least five days before each Town Meeting. The Committee also plays an active role at Town Meetings in moving for adoption of its recommendations, participating in discussion of the issues, and answering questions. A second major duty of the Advisory Committee under the General Laws (Chapter 40, Section 6) is to administer the Reserve Fund. This fund is created at the annual Town Meeting to provide for "extraordinary or unforeseen" expenditures which may become necessary after the annual appropriations are budgeted.
Town Positions 109 It is limited to a maximum of 5% of the tax levy of the preceding year and cannot be used for regional schools. Other departments may obtain a transfer of funds if approved by a majority vote of the Advisory Committee. Details of monies transferred are included in the annual report of the Committee. As the town has grown and expenditures have more than kept pace, the Advisory Committee has found it increasingly necessary to maintain close contact with operations of the principal Town departments on a continuing basis. At the present time, there are several sub-committees, each responsible for liaison with specific Town departments. This has led to improved communications and mutual understanding. BOARD OF APPEALS In 1918, the people of Massachusetts amended the Constitution of the Commonwealth to give the Legislature the specific power to limit buildings, according to their use or construction, to specified districts of cities and towns. The Legislature exercised this power by authorizing cities and towns to enact zoning ordinances or by-laws. The people of Sherborn responded by adopting a set of zoning by-laws at the June 7, 1937, Town Meeting. They subsequently have amended the Zoning By-Laws in 1946, 1954, 1968.1969,1970 and 1973. Zoning by-laws, by their nature, are regulations of general applicability to all parcels of land and buildings in any specific district. Applying a general regulation to a specific parcel of land which has unique topographical or other characteristics may produce harsh and unfair results, and the zoning act and the zoning by-laws consequently provide for a Board of Appeals to ameliorate any such undue harshness. The Sherborn Board of Appeals is composed of three members and one alternate member. It acts as a quasi-judicial body on petitions of appeal presented to it at public hearings. Its decisions are subject to appeal to the courts and it has no enforcement authority. The Board has three types of power. It may, as indicated above, grant a variance for a particular parcel of land or building from the Town's zoning by-law, but only if it finds that, owing to conditions especially affecting the parcel or building, but not affecting gen-
110 Sherborn erally the zoning district in which it is located, a literal enforcement of the by-law would involve substantial hardship. Furthermore, it must also find that desirable relief may be granted without substantially derogating the intent or purpose of the by-law. The Board may also grant special permits for various uses of property in the residential zones or the business zone, and often imposes various conditions to the special permits it grants. Finally, the Board is authorized to hear appeals from anyone aggrieved by a decision of the Building Inspector or other authorities of the Town which relate to zoning matters. The first formal report of the Board of Appeals appeared in the Town Report for 1939. Although the Board's workload has increased considerably since that time, the problems have not changed much, TOWN FOREST COMMITTEE In 1928, the Selectmen advised the Town that the Massachusetts Forestry Association, through its secretary, was in conference with the Board of Selectmen of the Town of Sherborn as he was with all boards throughout the state. At his suggestion a committee was appointed consisting of J. Freeman Leland, Ira T. Ward and James E. Colford, to study forestry matters with the State Secretary and make some plans for starting such work in Sherborn. The Town Forest is a new phase of forest conservation that seems destined to compare favorably with national and state forests. Perhaps the best argument for a Town Forest is the fact that in practically every case where a Town has established a forest the action was taken only after a thorough investigation by a special committee. Wherever a Town Forest has been properly managed it has been an encouragement to private owners to practice forestry, and the state supplies trees free of charge for planting in Town Forests. "We recommend that this matter be given serious consideration. There are many acres of land lying idle in Sherborn that might well be growing trees and, if the Town starts the work, many private owners will be encouraged to do likewise." Eleven years later, in 1939, the Town Forest became a reality with a gift from Henry M. Channing of 18 acres on Pine Hill. In the Town Meeting it was voted to accept the gift in memory of Robert H. Leland and that $300 be appropriated for clearing and upkeep.
Town Positions 111 That Town Meeting also voted to transfer nine acres of Town land on Pine Hill to the Town Forest. In 1940 the Advisory Committee recommended that $3,700 be appropriated to buy five parcels of land consisting of 135 acres (approximately $27 per acre!) but the Town voted this down and instead appropriated $2,000 to buy three of the parcels, totaling 53 acres, at a cost of better than $37 an acre. This year the first Town Forest Report appeared from committee members Henry M. Channing, N. Howard Peckham and C. Arthur Dowse. Mr. Channing was devoted to the idea of a Town Forest and when he heard of the Shell Oil Company's proposal to run a pipeline across Sherborn he negotiated with the company and with land owners along the proposed pipeline to give their land to the Town Forest. The negotiations must have been complex... "Various landowners agree to give Shell pipeline rights over their property free of charge and to give to the Town... parcels of land subject to pipeline rights in favor of Shell Company in return for Shell's agreement to give the town... three parcels outright and another parcel for $5,000. The agreement is contingent on the Town giving Shell pipeline rights over its public domain... Shell agrees to pay $1,200 annually for these pipeline rights... less the annual taxes paid by Shell to the Town on account of its pipeline... " At that time the tax revenues to the Town on all these parcels was less than $450.00. Certainly those donors of land were most generous, and Mr. Channing was tireless and persuasive in working out the arrangement. At the Town Meeting in 1940, it was voted that "the selectmen appoint a special committee of three for the purpose of extending to Mr. Henry Channing the thanks of the Town for his loyal and devoted service in acquiring an extensive and unified park system which will be of great value to the Town and a source of continuous enjoyment for its inhabitants and that the expression of thanks of that committee be spread upon the records of the Town Clerk." At the next Town Meeting it was voted to "authorize the Selectmen and the Planning Board to negotiate with the Department of Correction to accept land for the Town Forest," and in the Selectmen's report for 1942; "...the forest now comprises a continuous belt of land running from the Charles River at Rocky Narrows over to and including the top of Brush Hill." During autumn and winter of that year the Town transported, free of charge, to the home of any inhabitant, a cord of the fallen
112 Sherborn timber from Pine Hill. The owner was required to arrange for cutting. By the end of the year about 17 cords had been delivered...and there was plenty more for those who wanted it. Town Forest Report 1949
Town Forest Report 1950
Town Forest Report 1951
The Town Forest ceased to receive rental income from the Shell Oil pipeline in 1966, when Shell's tax payments to the Town exceeded $1,200. The Town Forest Committee has transferred in excess of $8,000 to the Town. The Town Forest today comprises 500 acres and the Committee recognizes that the original purpose and objective of the founders was to preserve a section of Town land in a natural and unchanged condition, not overdeveloped for recreational purposes. Volunteer groups help to keep the trails that run diagonally through the Town from northwest to southeast in good condition for hiking, cross-country skiing and horseback riding. The lands held by Trustees of Reservations continue these trails to the Charles River. THE CONSERVATION COMMISSION "It would be worth the while if in each town there were a committee appointed to see that the beauty of the town received no detriment." Henry David Thoreau The Conservation Commission was created in 1961 when the Town Meeting, acting on the recommendation of a Special Com-
Town Positions 113 mittee to Study Conservation Needs, voted to accept the provisions of Chapter 40, section 8-C of the Massachusetts General Laws. The commission was established for the purpose of encouraging, by all means available to it, the conservation of natural resources at the local level. At the end of its first year, the fledgling commission, then consisting of Chairman Jack V. Chambers together with Franklin King, Jr., and George Lewis, was able to report that its members had joined with the Board of Assessors in compiling a large-scale planning map of the Town and that they had embarked on an educational program to include a guest speaker for the Grange and an assembly at Pine Hill School. The most significant achievement of the commission in its early days, however, was to assist the Town in planning and acquiring the Ward J. Parks Skating Pond, a five-acre reservation situated off Main Street. The land was purchased in 1965 and the cost of developing it as a recreational area was a gift to the Town by Mr. Richard Saltonstall. The Conservation Commission came of age in 1968, under Chairman Richard T. Darby and members George W. Ferguson, Alwyn H. King, George Lewis and George R. Sprague. In that year, the Town, through the commission's efforts, acquired a 106-acre tract of land on Western Avenue and named it in honor of Town Clerk Emeritus, Elijah C. Barber. This reservation, which a subsequent land purchase has increased in size to 125 acres, consists of open fields, woodlands and marshes and will always offer great potential for conservation and recreational use. In the same significant year, the Legislature passed a special act authorizing the State Commissioner of Correction to convey to the Town three contiguous parcels of open land off Perry Street and Brush Hill Road having a total area of 94 acres. A deed formally conveying the property was signed late in 1969 and presented to the Town in ceremonies held at the Framingham Reformatory. During the years since 1968, the Conservation Commission has prepared a conservation master plan, based on authoritative Federal studies of Sherborn's soil characteristics and natural resources. Two land acquisitions, voted by the Town in 1970 and 1972, extended the Elijah C. Barber Reservation and the former Reformatory tract by a total of 63 acres. In each instance, one half the purchase price was financed by State reimbursement. The importance of the commission's activity received impressive recognition at the Town Meeting in 1973, when the Town voted overwhelmingly to appropriate $500,000, to be raised as needed, for financing the acquisition of land for conservation and
114 Sherborn open-space purposes. At the same time, it approved proposals of the commission and the Board of Selectmen to acquire three additional parcels of land, totaling 66 acres, for conservation use. Since the 1973 Town Meeting, the Conservation Commission, through continued efforts, has reached out to locate desirable parcels of land for acquisition by the Town. Quite apart from its responsibility to the Town with respect to the acquisition and management of open land for public use, the Conservation Commission has moved rapidly to assimilate its new regulatory duties in the preservation of wetlands under the Wetlands Protection Act. It has also maintained liaison with the State agencies responsible for administering development restrictions upon certain open land. Through the imaginative use of all of the planning tools available to the Town, the Conservation Commission hopes to be of great assistance in preserving Sherborn's natural resources and rural qualities for enjoyment by the generations to come. TREE WARDEN Though the Selectmen chose Thomas Eames to be in charge of felling trees in 1679, and levied fines to be collected by the constable for any violations of rules regarding the removal of wood, it was not until 1900, that the Town chose a Tree Warden. The following year they voted him the sum of twenty-five dollars to buy trees and this was the year that a booklet was published by the experiment station at Amherst about the elm leaf beetle which had started the deadly destruction that would lay waste many of our New England elms. It urged that the trees be treated or they would be lost, and at Town Meeting this care was voted onto the shoulders of the Tree Warden along with the responsibility for eradicating the gypsy moth, which problems he has been struggling with ever since. Appropriations are still being made on a yearly basis to replace diseased trees and those felled because of road construction. HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT A Committee was sent by the Court of General Sessions of the Peace in August of 1792, to view the County Road which ran
Town Positions 115 through Sherborn, and at Town Meeting it was voted that the Selectmen appear on behalf of the Town to "waite on and make provision for the entertainment of said Committee." In less than a month a Special Town Meeting voted to raise the money to repair the road at Sanger's Hill (Washington Street) agreeable to the proposals of the Committee sent by the Court. Three years later it was voted that the Selectmen be commissioned to put up guide posts on roads in town according to an Act of this same Court. The apparent concern about the County Roads is understandable when you realize that they were the links which tied the country together. When repairing this County Road a little closer to town in 1916, a large covering stone, a foot thick and several feet long, which was part of the culvert through which ran Sewell's Brook, was found to be marked in bold large letters, "A G 1734." It was probably placed there when the road was built and marked by the then Road Surveyor, one Addington Gardner. The Highway Department's many problems can never equal that of the Road Surveyor of 1857, who supervised the construction of the 'new road to Natick. An extension of North Main Street from Everett Street to the Natick line, it ran across marshy land and, when it was finished, began to disappear. The Town did not accept it for some time, and even then it was a real washboard road because great trees were felled across it with the space between them filled with gravel! The first State Highway was constructed through Sherborn in 1906, after a year of negotiations by the Selectmen with the State, and the Town voted the sum of $1,065 to complete it. The Surveyor saw that a good job was done and within the budget allotted, too. For regular maintenance of the roadways, a man who owned a tip cart and a team of horses was in great demand and was hired to fill potholes with gravel which he dug at one of the several pits owned by the Town just for this purpose. Each man was responsible for a stretch of roadway and, though they were jobbers in a sense, they had pride in their work and their matched pairs of horses, and they vied with each other to have the best section of road in town. This, therefore, was a two-man department, and when in 1921 the Town purchased its first truck, a Northway built in Natick: and possessed of solid rubber tires, it was Paul J. Heffron who drove it and kept it in perfect running order for ten years. Paul had worked for the Highway Superintendent during summers while he attended Sawin Academy and the University of
116 Sherborn Massachusetts at Amherst, and he served under seven Superintendents before he retired in 1963, with 45 years of service. In 1934, the Town revoked the vote of 1901, which had made the Superintendent of Highways an elective position, and thus returned this sensitive position to be an appointment of the Selectmen. A wooden V snowplow hitched onto a tractor was acquired in 1925, but the strong teams of horses were still called upon in big storms to break out some of the roadways. In 1927, the Town purchased its first iron plow. In the thirties, WPA funds were used to hire men for road work and, with State and Federal funds now available for road rebuilding, the Town constructed the remainder of its tarvia streets. In this decade, too, the Highway Surveyor was admonished at Town Meeting to do something about overcoming the dangers at busy corners in town. He was even allocated a sum of money for 'traffic control,' because the roads were so heavily traveled. (In 1965 the responsibility for recommendations concerning traffic safety measures was placed in the Town Traffic Safety Committee.) The first Town Shed, built on Farm Road in 1926, was replaced by the Town Garage built on Butler Street in 1961. Clarence Gray, then Superintendent of Streets, moved his department to its new office in this building. At his retirement three years later, he had held office for 38 years. John Gheringhelli and Howard Crossman, who retired in this same era, also had worked many years. The men who served the Town well in caring for our miles of roads have a remarkable record in their longevity of service. Presently, Robert McCarthy has just rounded out 28 years with Sherborn's Highway Department. FIRE DEPARTMENT It was the persistent clanging of the church bell that alerted the residents of this town, a century ago, to the dread discovery of a fire. And the sound, as it called all able-bodied men and boys to the scene, struck a chill to those hearts. There was, of course, no organized firefighting unit and those who turned out for the emergency did so on an entirely voluntary basis. Equipment was meager and town records show that purchases for fighting fires during the last part of the 1800s were limited to
Town Positions 117 ladders, buckets, axes and chemical fire extinguishers, ineffective against a spreading fire. Town-owned hand fire extinguishers were placed in private homes in strategic locations around the town for ready access in case of fire. They were listed with the Town Clerk and inspected regularly. Although the volunteers struggled gamely to keep a fire under control, yellowed newspaper clippings carry news accounts of blazing conflagrations against which the inadequate equipment was virtually defenseless. One such fire, in 1924, leveled the Daniel L. Whitney house on Western Avenue, devastating the barn, storage building, carriage house, water tank and three henhouses, with an estimated $15,000 loss. The report of the fire stated, "Without water, and with the thermometer at zero, firemen under Chief Coulter stood helplessly by, giving their attention to keeping the fire from spreading." The fire was discovered about 10 p.m., and nothing was left standing by 11:30. A sensational fire in 1925, demolished the farm buildings of Leslie Philbrook on Western Avenue, with a loss of $9,000, in which 14 cows, one horse, 45 tons of hay and the farm equipment were lost. The report of this fire tells that the flames made rapid headway, spreading from one outbuilding to another, Also, in the dead of winter, an additional anguish was evident when the Sherborn tank froze and no water was available. The Framingham and Hollis Street combination responded to the alarm and managed, with its chemical line, to keep the fire away from the farmhouse, but when the supply was gone, the house went up in flames, too. Through the years the reports from the Fire Warden noted increasing expenses incurred in extinguishing fires caused by sparks from the engines of the Boston and Albany trains. Railroads were cited for not burning grass and brush along their right of way to reduce fire danger, and many fires were put out by the owners of property along the tracks before they became a serious hazard. In 1918, for example, Forest Fire Warden H. D. Eastman listed $115 for expenses connected with such conflagrations, and of this amount the town collected $105 from the two railroads involved, plus a contribution of $26 toward the Warden's annual salary of $53. A few years before this, when Milo Frank Campbell served as Fire Warden for the town as well as Constable for the south section of Sherborn, where he lived, the firefighting equipment was mini-
118 Sherborn mal. Campbell had only his two-horse buggy, in which he carried 12 fire extinguishers, an axe and some shovels. Herbert Holbrook, who lived at 14 Coolidge Street, succeeded Campbell as Forest Fire Marshall, serving until 1926 when he retired because of ill health. Holbrook kept the fire engine in his barn, and it was he who suggested and supervised the construction of the first fire truck. He also dickered for a fire bell for it and word filtered back that he had bargained so sharply that the seller commented, "You'd have thought Holbrook was spending his own money." Ringing the bell he was so proud of, he drove the fire truck in the 250th Anniversary Parade in 1924. Upon his retirement in 1926, a tribute in the Framingham News read, "He has been quick to respond to fire calls, efficient at fires and cool headed always. Last spring hardly a day passed he wasn't on duty, or night either, and Mrs. Holbrook's cooperation helped not a little." John Jackson succeeded Holbrook as Fire Department head, at a salary of $10 a week when he had the care of the fire truck and $10 a month after the shed was built on Farm Road. John Devitt was appointed Fire Warden at Jackson's resignation and he served the Town in this capacity until 1940, when our present Chief Lester Klein assumed the Fire Warden's duties. In that year also, a special committee studying public protection stated unequivocally that the previous annual appropriation, approximately $700, was inadequate to maintain the equipment satisfactorily. The new Fire Chief recommended the construction of a fire house in a central location, the organization of an efficient and well-drilled force of volunteer firelighters and the location of waterholes at strategic points throughout the town. The study committee concurred on the recommendations and added other suggestions to raise the Town's insurance classification. The fire patrol was established in 1942 for the stated purpose, under the General Laws, of clearing lands of fire hazards, cutting firewood for the inhabitants in the event of a fuel shortage and of doing necessary fire prevention work. The Town also established, at this time, a Call Fire Department under Chapter 48, and from this nucleus has grown the fire department volunteers on call today, a permanent crew manning the modern equipment provided for the protection of the community's public buildings, churches and homes. In 1946, the Town voted $23,000 for the construction of the firehouse located on Main Street, and the equipment was housed there. By the following year the second floor was also completed.
Town Positions 119 The Fire Department personnel has, through the years since its organization, assisted the townspeople in many other ways. In several drought years, when the prolonged absence of rain resulted in dry wells for several weeks, families were supplied with water by the Fire Department. In other circumstances of rising flood waters, the department volunteers have traveled the town, pumping out flooded basements. Recently a rescue squad has been trained and equipped to assist at accidents or emergency illness, giving first aid until medical help arrives on the scene. LIBRARY TRUSTEES For the most part the long history of Sherborn is the narrative of the year-to-year affairs of its Library, Churches and Schools. Albeit less controversial, by its nature, than other civic institutions, our Public Library's influence among the townspeople has always been effective and far-reaching. Credit for this reputation must be given to its Board of Trustees who, by their selection of Librarians and Staffs, their selection of books and reading materials, and by their over-all supervision, have made the Library the center of cultural activities. Over the years the Board has had a membership of nine (three elected annually for a three year term). They formulate general policy, establish the annual budget, oversee the book acquisitions, coordinate activities with the State agencies, and manage the maintenance of the property. Presently the Staff is seven in number, two being full-time members,. POLICE DEPARTMENT In 1856, our town records show that one J.C. Salisbury was a Constable in Sherborn, and his total earnings in that year were less than eight dollars. Since constables in those days functioned as police officers, it would appear that his services were not often needed. People were perhaps more tolerant of others' faults then than now. For many successive years thereafter, the authority and power of police were vested in elected constables whose service for the
120 Sherborn Town was required only as special occasions arose. Strangers in town certainly could not have known their identity, a circumstance perfectly illustrated by a newspaper account of April, 1923, which read: "Wednesday morning a young man entered Jackson's Store, proffered what appeared to be a ten dollar bill in payment for a small purchase. Mr. Jackson luckily discovered that it was a one dollar bill "raised" to a ten dollar bill. Merchant Jackson immediately became Constable Jackson and arrested the fellow. He was taken to Medfield and placed in custody of United States Authorities." A 1940 special Committee appointed to study our police protection reported that the greatest need was in traffic control. Some cars went "as fast as 40 miles per hour." It recommended that a Constable be delegated to spend at least six. hours per week on traffic duty. The following year, the Town voted to have the Selectmen employ some person regularly to be available and on call and to perform duties of a police officer. It was not until 1954, that a Constable was named "Police Chief." In 1957, the Town voted to establish a Police Department and Harold "Deke" Jackson, who already had the title, was appointed head of the department as "Chief of Police." To assist him, Edward Barber was named "Police Officer." "Deke" worked at the job twenty-four hours a day with only one eight-hour shift for relief each week. He rightfully became a legend in the annals of town officials. He was a friend of all, skillful in handling people, and always eager to be helpful in official, as well as unofficial activities of townspeople. A cruiser purchased in 1951 was radio-equipped, with all messages dispatched to it through the Natick Police Department as they were received from Jackson's Store, the police nerve-center adjacent to the Chief's residence. The cruiser was the "Police Office" and Deke was available all the time. In 1960, a full time patrolman was added to the force, in the person of John D. Paul who was later appointed the "Chief of Police" upon the resignation of Mr. Jackson. Chief Paul has held the position since that date. In 1961, the Police Department moved to the Town Hall office vacated by the Highway Superintendent, Clarence Gray, who was at that time installed in his new quarters on Butler Street. This office has expanded to include the entire west side of the Town House. A full-service message center, serving the Police, Fire, Highway and Tree Departments, dispatches messages to the 26 radio-
Town Positions 121 equipped vehicles. There are now nine men in the Police Department and there are two cruisers on patrol. THE RECREATION COMMISSION Until 1972, all recreation matters were handled by an appointed Recreation Director and commission. This commission was limited in budget planning and expenditures, since the recreation budget fell under the authority of the Selectmen and therefore needed their approval. In 1972, it became obvious that there were many activities and participants that needed coordinating, and the Town voted to authorize a three-man Recreation Commission whose members were to be elected for terms of three years. Aside from the new Commission's authority to allocate funds, there is really no difference between the past appointed commission and the present elected commission. There is still a strong tennis lobby pushing for new courts and lights, before men's softball gets their astrodome; Little League fathers are still disputing the 1957 Little League World Series outcome; and horses still gallop across freshly seeded infields every spring. A commission, appointed or elected, must solve these problems. Present priorities of the Commission are to maintain present park land and to coordinate available recreation land for present and future use. Many activities are offered reflecting the Town's varied interests. THE TOWN COMMITTEE Holding a Town Caucus to see that a candidate for each elective position in Town Government is on the ballot for the March Meeting is the responsibility of the Town Committee. One candidate is nominated for each office and so designated on the ballot, but the Committee urges any registered Sherborn voter who wants to serve the Town by holding public office, to run on papers and encourages that all positions be contested. The unofficial Town Caucus had its origin in pre-Revolution days when the influential men of a community gathered together
122 Sherborn at the Tavern to discuss who could best be expected to fill Town positions for the coming year. Lest this be the means for an unscrupulous person to gain control of a community, the Commonwealth, through its General Laws, required that the Town Committee hold the Town Caucus, and that members be voted for the ensuing year at each meeting. SEALER OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES At Town Meeting in March of 1856, it was voted that the Selectmen should appoint a Sealer of Weights and Measures, another responsibility of the Town Fathers which was requiring an increasing amount of time. A hundred years later, the yearly sealing of weights and measures in the town involved not only the increased number of scales and measuring devices that might have been expected with the growth in the population, but also eight gasoline pumps! One of the grand scales in town, for weighing over 5,000 pounds, had been situated in front of the general store and Post Office where the wagons could readily drive onto it. Seymour W. Carter, who had been Sealer of Weights and Measures for many years, as his father, Samuel R. Carter, had been before him, filed his last report with the Selectmen in 1965, because the State Division of Standards had taken this job over from small towns. Seymour noted in his report that it was perhaps cause for a moment's sentimental reflection that an office dating back to colonial days in one form or another was passing from the Town, but that it should be acknowledged as a change in the direction of efficiency.
Town Positions 123 Fidelis Per Multos Annos Serving continuously for ten years or more and still in the following offices are:
124 Sherborn THE SELECTMEN OF SHERBORN
Town Positions 125
126 Sherborn David Perry, 1751. Town Positions 127 Benj. Bullard, 1780. 128 Sherborn James Holbrook, 1815. Town Positions 129 Tho. J. Morse, Esq., 1847. 130 Sherborn Arthur R. Wright, 1915-'24. CHURCHES, EDUCATION AND THE LIBRARY It is right, and of the highest importance to the welfare of the town that its religious interests should be among the first to be supported and cherished as one of the bulwarks of a free community. The foundation of the Puritan church in our old New England town carries with it a part of the history of the town, as it was originally considered a part of the town business and regulated in Town Meeting with as much interest as any other part of the town affairs. So closely related were they, that it was not until 1809 in Sherborn that the Town and church records were kept in separate books. In our Tercentenary year there are three churches established within our bounds and their histories follow; through the years, Sherborn has been the home of other religious groups. In 1848 a portion of the church and congregation of the First Church, with Rev. Richard Stone as pastor, formed a new society which they called the Wesleyan Methodist Society. They erected a chapel north of the Common and continued their services there for about six years, until Mr. Stone removed from town and the society was dissolved. An Episcopal Chapel at Whitney's Bridge, in 1893, continued into the early 1900s, and was attended by people from Ashland as well as those in Sherborn. In 1965, 32 families formed an ecumenical group called the Church of the Saviour, with Rev. James E. Turner as their minister, and had their meetings in Sherborn for a year in the building across from the Town Office Building. It then moved to Framingham to larger quarters. 131
132 Sherborn
Churches 133 First Parish Church The history of the First Parish and the history of Sherborn are so interrelated that it is impossible to write of one without mention of the other. The first settlers, coming to Plymouth and Boston, were religious dissenters. They came to enjoy a religious freedom and also to seek a civil organization founded upon the right of every man to have a voice in his own government. But in the newly-formed colonies, church and state were one, and among the first tasks of a group of founding fathers was that of finding and settling a minister. In 1652, Thomas Holbrook, Henry Leland and Nicholas Wood set up farms on the east bank of the Charles River in a place called Boggestow, now South Sherborn. It was necessary for them to cross the river every Sabbath to attend meeting in Medfield. This was a long and difficult trip any time of the year but particularly treacherous in the winter because no bridge spanned the Charles. As more settlers arrived, they filed petitions to the General Court and one was granted in 1674, setting Sherborn off as an incorporated town, and therefore making her eligible to have a minister and Meeting House of her own. At first, there was some dissension as to the location of the building. The colonists had come with the express purpose of determining their own affairs and every man exercised his right! The King Philip Wars posed another disrupting influence, and so it was not until 1680 that a site was chosen and a building contracted for. In the meantime, religious and town meetings were held at Captain Joseph Morse's home (46 Forest Street). An area, 20 rods square, on the hill south of Edwards Plain, was set aside and deeded to the Parish. Lumber was furnished by Thomas Sawin's Mill on Course Brook, and the first meeting house was erected where the present building stands. An agreement with Rev. Daniel Gookin was signed granting him "twenty pounds in money and twenty pounds in country pay, such as we raise ourselves," and indicating that a house fitted and finished conveniently to dwell in be conveyed to Mr. Gookin, provided he engage himself as minister for life. He served the people of Sherborn and continued working with the Praying Indians of South Natick, who had been converted to Christianity by John Eliot. The first building was very small and crude, and notations appear in the records from time to time for such improvements as "adding benches" or "setting a window to give a more pleasant
134 Sherborn aspect." In the 1720s, a larger building was erected to the north of the earlier one, enabling the use of the old church without disruption of services while building was going on. Members of the church built pews at their own expense, and the only heat was from foot stoves filled with hot coals which were brought from home. When this building was outgrown, it was ingeniously sawed in two, the west end moved forward, and an addition built in the middle. From the date of incorporation in 1674 until 1798, Town and parish records were one and the same. Prior to 1776, all warrants for annual meetings were issued "in the name of his Majesty, the King of Britain." At a well-attended parish meeting on June 20, 1776, with Capt. James Mann acting as moderator, a vote was taken to uphold the Continental Congress, should they declare their independence from Great Britain. From 1798 to 1809, records were kept separately, but in the same book, and in the latter year the custom of separate books was begun. When the Second Parish was formed in 1830, a complete and final separation of church and town was established. Rev. Amos Clark, who had served as assistant to the ailing Rev. Shearjashub Townsend, espoused the new Unitarian teachings and upon his election as minister of the First Parish, a group of more orthodox believers agitated for a separation. It seems incredible today that a struggling congregation in a small farming community could split, and each parish build such fine examples of classic New England churches as those which are still standing. A third congregation broke off in 1848 and formed a Methodist Society, based on another new religious movement. They built a chapel "on the common" to the north of First Parish, between the Leland Monument and the street. After about five years, they disbanded and rejoined the Unitarians with the Rev. John Fleming, who settled as the minister. In 1893, the First Parish shared a minister, Rev. Leverett R. Daniels, with the Eliot Unitarian Church in South Natick. In the horse-and-buggy days of slow transportation, this arrangement had its disadvantages and was soon discontinued. With the advent of the automobile, it was again feasible, and a minister was shared with . South Natick from the 1920s to the early 1940s. The hurricane of 1938 had toppled the steeple shaft but it was soon restored through the generosity of Mr. Richard Saltonstall. During World War II a shortage of ministers, the small membership in each church, and gasoline rationing prompted the formation of the Federated Church of Sherborn, combining First Parish and Pilgrim Church.
Churches 135 In 1960, a divergence in theology and ideology again occurred and, with post-war increases in population, it was deemed advisable to restore the original parishes. During federation, the Unitarians had sold their parish house. Unity Hall, which had stood on South Main Street behind the Town Hall. Since they now had no facility for Sunday School and church suppers, three ladies of the parish conceived the idea, in 1962, of establishing through The Alliance, the women's group of First Parish, a consignment shop, later named the "Good-as-New Shop," for the sale of family clothing at bargain prices. The proceeds of this would create a fund to pay for new accommodations for the Sunday School. Fully appreciating this urgent need of the Church at this time, Miss Helen and Miss Haidee Bothfeld provided the First Parish Church with the necessary funds to build an ample addition at the rear of its classic Greek Revival Meeting House, for Sunday School and social functions. This generous gift was made in memory of their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Henry E, Bothfeld, long devoted and active members. The addition, still named "Unity Hall," was dedicated in November, 1963. In the fall of 1973, the First Parish in Sherborn became the nucleus for the West Suburban Unitarian-Universalist Church. This 'area church' was formed to serve the many families of liberal religious faiths from Sherborn, Natick, Holliston, Millis and Medfield. Ministers who have served with the First Parish in Sherborn:
* including South Natick 136 Sherborn
Churches 137 Pilgrim Church During the early part of the 19th century, a theological controversy swept through New England and not many communities escaped the divisive results of the dispute. In most cases, it was the members of the parish holding the more conservative Trinitarian position who withdrew and formed a 'second' religious society in the community. This is precisely what happened in Sherborn. Thus the Pilgrim Church originated. Twelve male inhabitants of the town petitioned that "A Warrant be issued, in due form of law, for the purpose of forming a second religious Congregational Society in said town." The twelve signers were: Daniel Leland, 2nd, Asa Clark, Benjamin Dowse, Amory Babcock, Benjamin Bullard, Aaron Coolidge, Jonathan Eames, Jonas Greenwood, Daniel Leland, George B. Hooker, Walter Barber and Europe Fay. The Warrant was issued on the next day and on the 22nd of February, 1830, the Pilgrim Society was formed, then called the "Sherborn Evangelical Society." The new church started with 66 men and women as charter members. The first services were held in the hall above the store owned by Joseph Sanger, which was situated on the lawn of the present Town Offices. No time was lost in the effort to build a church and the frame of the building was raised on July 8, 1830. The structure still serves today, although much modified. The cost of the land was $200 and the building $3,000. Before the end of the year, plans to build horse sheds were completed "said sheds to be built with one roof and uniform." They stood until 1930. Five hundred dollars was voted for the original bell, made in Medway by a partner of Paul Revere. The present bell was installed later because the first one had cracked. Not until 1848 was the furnace heat installed, and in 1853 the original building was moved nearer to the middle of the lot. At this time it was raised 10 feet for a basement. An additional 20 feet were added to the rear and the building "was finished off in a grand and substantial manner." The spire was said to be one of the most beautiful in these parts, but it was hit by lightning on June 4th, 1923, when considerable damage was done to the building as well. Not until 1875 was the name of the church changed, by an Act of the Legislature, when it was chartered as Pilgrim Church. The most conspicuous pastorate in the history of the town was that of Reverend Edmund Dowse, who was born and raised in Sherborn, where he was honored and respected by his fellow townsmen. He had joined the church in the year of its formation. At the
138 Sherborn celebration of his sixtieth anniversary as pastor of the church, he said, "I preached my first sermon in Ashland. At the close of the service. Deacon Shepherd thanked me for my sermon and said, 'You stopped in just the right place.' When I finish my work here, I hope I stop in the right place." His pastorate extended seven more years. Throughout his life, he was interested in public affairs and served over 50 years as Chairman of the School Committee. The railroad, which was probably a greater blessing to the town at that time than at present, is said to have been built largely as a result of his efforts. It was this railroad which furnished transportation to the many distinguished visitors, over 600, who came here to honor him in 1898. The State was fortunate in having Dr. Dowse serve two years in the Massachusetts Senate. "His votes were given to maintain the supremacy of the law and to promote the highest welfare of the whole people." He became Chaplain of the Senate, and served in that capacity for 25 years. At the rear of the sanctuary of the church his portrait hangs over the chair in which he sat in the Massachusetts Senate. Dr. Dowse was engaged in the work of the Christian Commission in the South during the Civil War. It was while he was there that his second wife died of pneumonia. He himself died in 1905, one year after being named Pastor Emeritus. It is interesting to note that Pilgrim Church called a woman pastor in 1929, and it was during the ministry of Rev. Mary Macomber that the l00th anniversary of the church was celebrated. In 1924, it was considered expedient that the two Protestant churches in Sherborn should again combine. The First Parish Unitarian and the Pilgrim Church Congregational voted to merge and form the Federated Church of Sherborn. Needed repairs were done on the combined properties. The Unitarian Church was used for Sunday services, and the Pilgrim Church sanctuary was transformed into a parish house and Sunday School. The old pews were removed, and an attractive auditorium with a well-equipped stage and new hardwood floor emerged. The rear section of the building was added for church school uses, and as the Town of Sherborn made use of the new rooms for public school for a few years, the addition was built to state standards. In general, this physical plant was quite satisfactory, except possibly the distance between the Church and Parish House, and the fact that all plumbing was located in the Parish House.
Churches 139 In 1961, the Unitarian group voted to withdraw from the Federation, most recently called "The Community Christian Church of Sherborn," and both groups again relied on their own facilities. In 1963, the Community Christian Church was legally dissolved, and its members joined the reactivated Pilgrim Church. The restoration of the sanctuary was carried out by one professional carpenter assisted by many volunteer laborers. Since the old pews had been disposed of, the present new and probably more comfortable pews were installed. Each was a gift and so designated by a plaque. The old organ, stored and inactive during the period of the Federation, was restored. It had been originally installed in 1864, and for many years was pumped by hand, until the electric blower was installed in 1920. Dr. Edmund Dowse's son, William Bradford Homer Dowse, throughout his life also maintained a great interest in the Pilgrim Church and the town. In 1945, he donated the home he had built at 2 North Main Street to the Church for a Parsonage, and the large tract of land surrounding it went to the town. The ecumenical spirit of the three Sherborn churches is in evidence at Christmas time when one of the three alternately hosts the other two at the Christmas Tea. On a national level, about ten years ago the Congregational Churches of the United States and the Evangelical and Reformed Churches of the United States were merged into the United Church of Christ. Pilgrim Church took this step, and is now numbered with thousands of other congregations in the United Church of Christ. Amid all changes, the old New England Meeting House, proudly erected by our forebears in 1830, continues to serve as the focal point of the church's life and worship, and is an important part of the town, Although few names have been mentioned in this report, it should be said that Elijah C. Barber, for whom the town's Barber Reservation was named, was long a faithful member of Pilgrim Church, serving for many years as its Moderator. He was also a long-time member of the Board of Deacons, and Deacon Emeritus, and at the time of the 1962 restoration, one of the frontal screens of the first pews was donated in his honor.
140 Sherborn Ministers who have served with the Pilgrim Church in Sherborn:
Churches 141
142 Sherborn St. Theresa's Church Compared with that of the 300 years of pulsating life of the Town of Sherborn, the story of the Catholic parish within its boundaries, St. Theresa or the Little Flower, is short and unmarked by great events. And yet, in a way, it shows how folk of different backgrounds and traditions came to a small New England town, lived and worshipped God in some isolation, and gradually made their church and themselves vital, integral parts of the community. Thomas and Catherine Burke settled in Sherborn on April 1, 1868, to become the first Catholic family in the town in the time of which we write. They were followed by others and, in the 1920s, the number had reached some 25 to 30 families. To satisfy their religious obligations, these hardy souls traveled, often on foot, to St, Patrick's in Natick, or St. Mary's in Holliston, and elsewhere. Recognizing the hardship of this situation and judging the numbers to be sufficient to warrant it, William Cardinal O'Connell, Archbishop of Boston, "granted permission on September 9, 1923, to the Reverend Michael F. Delaney of St. Patrick's Parish in Natick, to erect the Chapel of St. Theresa of the Little Flower," to be a Mission of St. Patrick's Church. At a special Town Meeting on June 5, 1924, the Town authorized the Selectmen to sell the Town property situated on South Main Street. Armed with this directive, the Selectmen, Parkman F. Staples, Earl L. Hatch, and Charles E. McCarthy, negotiated the sale to Michael F. Delaney of Natick, with the transfer of property occurring on August 8, 1924. On the property was the building now known as St. Theresa's Church, which had been built by the Town in 1898 to serve as its almshouse. Shortly after it was built, the need for an almshouse had diminished to such an extent that it was closed, used for a time as a parsonage for the Pilgrim Church, and then left vacant. Thus the wish of the Town to divest itself of an unused building, and the need of the tiny Catholic Community in it, happily coincided. The parishioners set to with great energy to convert this building into a Chapel and by late summer the renovation was complete. On September 8, 1925, the Chapel was blessed by Father Delaney at a ceremony in which the Selectmen and United States Senator David I. Walsh participated. For the occasion, a temporary altar and speakers' platform were erected in front of the Chapel, and the people assembled in chairs set on the lawn. It was a festive occasion.
Churches 143 Father Delaney, or one of his curates, said Mass at 9:00 on Sundays, with Sunday School immediately following. The choir, in which the Gheringhelli and Devitt families were well represented, was accompanied by Sally Collins on the pumped organ. Francis 0. McCarthy, son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles E, McCarthy, was the first child baptized in the Chapel. Perhaps a list of some of the donors might give at least a cursory idea of those involved at the beginning. The names of those on the plaque of initial donors are: Patrick and Ellen McCarthy, Joseph T. McCarthy, Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. McCarthy, Mr. and Mrs. John A. McCarthy, Mr. and Mrs. James White, Mr. and Mrs. James Colford, Mr. and Mrs. H. Cousineau, James and Steven Farricy, Annie M. Holbrook, Michael Wall, Michael J. Berry and Edward Hagerty. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Devitt, Mr. and Mrs. John Burke, and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Walsh were donors in memory of Thomas, Catherine and Harold Burke. Mrs. Leonard and Mrs. James Colford donated statues. The Women's Guild provided a social background and a small source of parish income. But the activity which aroused the most excitement among the children was certainly the Christmas Party Father Delaney gave for them at the Colonial Theater in Natick. In 1937, the Mission of St. Theresa was transferred from St. Patrick's in Natick to St. Thomas' in Millis when the "Decree for the Establishment of a New Parish in Millis" was issued. The first pastor of St. Thomas' was Father Fredrick J. Mulrey, who was succeeded several years later by Father John N. Cunningham. The number of parishioners was such that a second Mass was added on Sunday at 11:30. By 1945, the Mission of St. Theresa had grown sufficiently so that it could support a resident priest. The Reverend Edward J. Riley was appointed the first pastor on November 21, 1945. He was warmly welcomed by the Town of Sherborn at a reception given by the Parish at the Town House. The immediate problem confronting the new pastor was the finding of a suitable residence. His search culminated in the purchase of the present rectory at 24 North Main Street. It had been unoccupied for quite a number of years and required considerable renovation. Therefore, it was not until 1947 that Father Riley, a veritable religious Ulysses by this time, was able to take up residence. The population of the Parish was now 77 families, comprising 287 people. Father Riley's activities were prodigious; the organization of the Holy Name Society, the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin,
144 Sherborn and the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. To the Rectory was added a Chapel in which daily Mass was said. The church was redecorated and pews installed. Father Riley was transferred in 1947, and upon his departure, Father Michael J. Horrigan became pastor of St. Theresa's and chaplain of the Reformatory. His hearty "God bless this house and all who dwell in it," became familiar to every home in the Parish, as he made his regular flying visits. Father Horrigan moved on to St. Joseph's Parish, and Father Francis A. Curley took his place in 1950. The following year the statue of St. Theresa which stands in benediction in front of the church was given in memory of Harold M. Heffron by his wife and sons. The appointments of Father Curley as pastor of St. Elizabeth's in Milton and of Father Edward J. McKenna as pastor of St. Theresa's became effective in 1953. A most memorable event in the Parish history was the occasion of the only visit of a Cardinal to St. Theresa's Parish. Cardinal Richard J. Cushing. Archbishop of Boston, then organizing the construction of Marian High School in Framingham, elected to pay a flying visit to St. Theresa's on his way to give a speech at the new High School. The ladies of the Sodality were giving a spaghetti supper that evening when Father McKenna announced that His Eminence would sup with them Italian style, and this caused quite a stir. As was usual wherever the Cardinal visited, photographers were in evidence and St. Theresa's in Sherborn 'made' the Boston Herald the next day. The move to suburbia was well underway now, and St. Theresa's was feeling the effects. The parking was inadequate and Father McKenna had the area enlarged. The following February the parish was greatly saddened by the death of Father McKenna in Florida, where he was on vacation with friends. Father John H. O'Connor was appointed to be the new pastor and shortly after his arrival a set of pews, a gift of Bishop Minahan, was installed in the choir, thus giving additional seating capacity to the church. The old pumped organ was replaced by a new electric one. Mrs. Harold B. Cranshaw directed the choir and trained the altar boys, among whom there was usually a Dittami. The Sodality sponsored the Rev. John R. McCall, S.J., who spoke to a capacity crowd of educators, as well as townspeople and clergy, in the Town House on "The Adolescent: His Strength and Weaknesses." Mrs. Mary Reed Newland lectured on her book, The Family and the Bible, and Mrs. Kenneth Cornish of Woodland Farm,
Churches 145 using slides she had taken in India, spoke of her work under Sister Therese, whose concern for the indigent poor has brought her worldwide acclaim. The Holy Name Society, led successively by William Lane, J. Robert Shaughnessy, Arthur McGrath, Dr. Bernard F. Trum, Charles E. McCarthy, Andre Sampou, Anthony B. Ragozzino, Peter Dittami and William J. Caradonna, met each month after Mass to plan its activities. Though the numbers were few, the conversation scintillated. Father O'Connor initiated, with the Federated Church, the joint Church Christmas Party. This gathering, first given at the Pilgrim Church in 1960 and progressing each year to one of the three, was an ecumenical event of importance and has helped to bring a fine sense of unity to the town. Father O'Connor's stay of nine years was the longest of any pastor, and they were fruitful, happy years for him and for the parish. He was much admired by the folk of the town and before he left for his new post in 1965, the town gave him a tremendous testimonial dinner at the Dover-Sherborn High School gymnasium. The largest number of those present were non-members of St. Theresa's. Les Klein observed that on most such occasions the speakers exaggerate the virtues of the guest of honor, but that on this occasion all that was said was true. Father William J. Flanagan, the new pastor, took up residence immediately and he was well equipped to take advantage of the reservoir of goodwill built up by his predecessor. He became a familiar figure as one of the leaders of the Memorial Day Parade and delved, as well, into the history of the town which he found fascinating. With his great gift for whimsical humor, Father Flanagan recalled that he and the former pastor had received their notices of transfer on the day of the Great Northeast Blackout. Father Flanagan suffered a stroke and was forced to turn over the active management of the parish in August 1970, to Father John J. O'Connor, who was designated administrator. Through his efforts, the sanctuary has been remodeled. The population of the parish has now reached 175 families, numbering 600 people.. The Masses to serve the parish have been increased, thus enabling St. Theresa's Chapel to take care of her growing family in Sherborn.
EDUCATION IN SHERBORN "Education is a debt due from the present to future generations." Long before these words were written in the early 1800s by the American philanthropist, George Peabody. the people of the Town of Sherborn had begun the assumption of that debt to the future. The following account, taken primarily from official Town records, tells the story of the continuous, and always expanding, effort of the townspeople to educate their children. The work of teaching was first performed in the several homes of the newly incorporated town where the children could assemble. Obadiah Morse, the First Town Clerk, was the first to teach in this informal fashion. In 1694, Edward West, who was then Town Clerk, was chosen schoolmaster for the Town. The cost of the schools at this time was not borne by the Town, but by the parents of the children attending. Yet it is evident that the early settlers were looking forward to the time when there would be a public school system, for on the sixteenth of April 1679, Articles of Agreement were drawn up by which an exchange of land was made and among other items of compensation we find the following: "Also we agree & consent that in the Lands we are to have of Natick there be a Lot of Fifty Acres sett out where the Commissioners of the Colonies, Major Gookin and Mr. Elliot, and the Indian Rulers shall choose within that Tract of Land, to be appropriated forever to the use of a free School for teaching The English and Indian Children there, the English Tongue & other Sciences." In 1702, we find the following entry in the records: "William Rider, junr., was chosen Schoolemaster for the year ensueing, and ym yt send their children to schoole to agree with him and pay him." Up to the year 1709, the school had been kept but a short time each year, but in this year the Town voted to have it kept for three months, and at three parts of the town, viz.. The Plain, South End, and Dirty Meadow, probably one month in each place, and levied a tax of £8 to pay for maintaining it. From this time on we find the Town assuming the cost of the schools, though they were still kept at private houses. In 1712, we find the entry: "Voted ye sum of six pounds four shillings and six pence be speedily levied for the paying of the 146 Education 147 Schoolmaster, Mr. Abraham Cusan, Junr, as ye Selectmen have agreed with him, for nine weeks service in keeping school this present year, also 12 s. for providing firewood for the school." Mr. Cuzzans taught the school for several years, and a receipt for salary was copied thus, "Received August 18th, 1712, of Deacon Learned, Treasurer of Sherborn, the full sum of five pounds Twelve Schillings and Sixpence for Schooling, which is in full of all accomps from the beginning of the world to this Day. I say Received by me. Abraham Cuzzans." On December 25, 1719, it was voted that school should be kept in five parts of the town, Chestnut Brook and Bald Hill being added to the list of places previously established. The first public schoolhouse was voted by the Town at a meeting held on December 29, 1727: "Then at said meeting there was a vote passed to Build a Schoolhouse and to set it on the Meetinghouse common on the Southerly side of the Meetinghouse. Also there was voted that the Dementions of the Schoolhouse shall be 18 foot wide and 20 foot long." The following year a committee was chosen to sell the school land set aside in the exchange of territory with Natick, and to use this money toward the cost of building and finishing of the schoolhouse. A purchaser was found in Jonathan Russell, who agreed to pay for the land £58 in good bills of credit, but not being able to meet his obligation within the time allowed, he relinquished his claim, and Obadiah Morse took about 30 acres for £40, and Benoni Learned the remainder for £10, With the aid of this money, the schoolhouse was completed, and continued in use until 1770, when it was sold with its contents to Captain Sanger. "Until 1761, the schools were kept during the winter, and by a man teacher, but at this time the Town voted "to grant Something more for the Seport of a woman School, to teach small children," and £4 was accordingly granted. A Committee was chosen in 1762 to investigate and report about the need of public schoolhouses. Three years later the following was entered on the books, "A vote was asked ye Town whether they would grant any money this meeting to Procure or build school houses in the several part of ye Town, and it passed in the negative." Until 1767, the schools had taught chiefly reading, writing and cyphering, but the General Court had prescribed that higher branches should also be included. As Sherborn had failed to so do, a tax of £9 was levied, "To be assessed on polls and estates to
148 Sherborn pay ye fine and cost of a Presentment for not having a Gramer School." There was on the record the following year: "Granted to Esqr. Perry 6 s. and to Jos. Twitchell 18 s. for the cost and charge they were at in getting a fine granted by sessions to the town to be spent in a Gramar School in Sherborn." In 1773, Mr. Locke, former President of Harvard College, returned to Sherborn and founded his classical school and after him Rev. Mr. Brown kept a school for preparing young men for college. Schoolhouses were built in the roughly defined school districts and kept under the charge of a Prudential Committee chosen by that district. However, in 1794, a committee of five was chosen to consider the advisability of accepting the offer that the districts turn over the schoolhouses to the Town and that the Town repair and keep them in condition. The offer was accepted, though the method of conducting the schools continued as before. Definite bounds for the districts were established in 1828. A group of inhabitants, in 1824, opened an academy in the hall over Colonel Sanger's Store, after being rebuffed in an attempt to have the Town erect a Town House in which such a school could be conducted. The school was started by subscription, and later the proprietors, about 30 in number, purchased land and erected a building 26 ft square and two stories high, on the site of the present Town House. The cost was paid by issuing 56 shares of stock at the par value of $20. The building was later bought by the Town and used as a Town House between 1830 and 1856, when the present one was erected. On March 3, 1838, the first school committee for the Town was chosen. It consisted of seven members who had very little authority over the schools, but it marked another step toward the present system. In the following year, their first report was a brief statement concerning the condition of the schools. The first printed report of the School Committee covered the 1851-52 school year and was eight pages long. A recently enacted law had made it mandatory for each school committee to read a report at the regular Town Meeting, or cause it to be printed and distributed for the use of the inhabitants. This report, signed by Edmund Dowse, Jeremiah Butler and Joseph Dowse, Jr., shows seven schools in operation. In general remarks the committee urges the importance of having all teachers, "present at the time appointed for examination, and the great impropriety of presenting teachers on the very day when they are expected to enter upon
Education 149 their duties. Some of the older teachers would have doubtless been better prepared to enter upon their work, if they had refreshed their minds by a review of those things with which they had once been familiar." The Normal Schools are commended because they "make it their business to qualify their pupils for teachers, and they are generally found very thorough in the common English branches." Comments are made very frankly about the good or bad features of each teacher's work. In its second report to the Town, the School Committee wrote, "In respect to the teachers presented by the districts for examination, we are happy to say we found them possessing good intellectual qualifications, and good testimonials of moral character. There arc two particulars to which our attention has been repeatedly called. The first has reference to the use of improper language by the teacher in the schoolroom. It appears very important that those who are required to teach grammer, should speak the English Language with propriety and that they should avoid the use of those vulgarisms, which however common in the world at large, are by universal consent regarded as inadmissible in a teacher. He should use such language that he may be imitated by those under his tuition. The second remark that we wish to make has reference to the subject of corporal punishment. We believe that this is sometimes necessary to sustain the authority of a school and have no sympathy with the doctrine, 'spare the rod and spoil the child,' but we think that this should be the last resort and great care should be had, that it be inflicted in such a way that the child shall sustain no permanent injury." At this time, it was customary to employ a woman teacher for the summer term and a man for the winter because the older boys attended school only during the winter months. The law authorizing the establishment of school districts was enacted in 1789, and had resulted in seven schools in Sherborn so that the number of scholars in summer often did not exceed five. In 1855, the State Board of Education recommended that the district system be abolished in favor of a Town system. Though the School Committee believed this change would benefit Sherborn, no action was taken. Among other matters in this report, mention is made of difficulties over the reading of the Bible, complaint having reached the Committee that a teacher did not follow the custom of reading from it at the opening of school. When asked to do so by the Committee, "He took another version, and read from it." This excited a good deal of feeling and it then became a
150 Sherborn serious question whether he should be continued any longer in the school. A private high school of 57 pupils was conducted for several terms at this time in Bickford Hall (later Unity Hall) with the tuition $4 per pupil. The School Committee in its report for this year (1855) recommended a separate appropriation of $300 for a high school, but the Town failed to act favorably on this motion. An experiment of an evening school in the Town House was tried during the winter, but was not a success and only three sessions were held. In the same year, when composition was introduced to the district schools, the School Committee said, "We have desired that every scholar in our schools might be instructed in the art of making sentences, so far at least as to be able to conduct common business transactions, to write letters, and if they should be called to any civil office, to express themselves properly. In order to secure this result, we have introduced this exercise into our schools... We have insisted upon it." In 1858, Executors for Thomas Dowse of Cambridge, acting under a general power conferred upon them by the terms of his will, offered to the "Town of Sherborn the sum of five thousand dollars on the following conditions, viz; 1st. The Principal to be kept entire and designated as The Dowse School Fund. The income to be used annually for the support of a public high school in said town, or if it should be at any time deemed advisable to use the principal of this fund for the building of a schoolhouse with accommodations for Town Meetings and other public purposes, then the Town is to be responsible for the annual payment of the interest... to be applied as above stated. "2nd. The higher English branches shall be taught in this school, and Greek and Latin so far as to qualify the pupils for admission to our colleges. "3rd. The town shall raise a sufficient sum in addition to the income from this fund to support such a school for at least one term of four months in each year." At Town Meeting April 5, 1858, it was "Voted to build a Town House, with suitable accommodations for a High School, Town Meeting, and other public purposes." The Town, having elected to use the money in building the "Town House," assumed the obligation to pay $300 a year in lieu of interest on the fund. According to the report of the committee appointed in 1910 to study all matters covered in the reports of the School Committee
Education 151 and the Trustees of Sawin Academy, "it appears that for many years, the amount paid by the town was $400." They wrote, "It may be that, at the time of the incorporation of the Academy, there was some understanding that there should be that sum to be paid, but no record to that effect has been found." This arrangement
accounts for the payment to the school department each year of $400, known as the Dowse School Fund, separate from the regular school appropriation. A "spacious and elegant schoolroom" was finished and furnished in the Town Hall, and the school opened in March 1859, for a term of eleven weeks under the guidance of Mr. F. A. Baker of Dedham, a teacher for several years in the district schools of the town during the winter terms. Sixty pupils were in attendance, filling all the seats. Thus the Dowse High School became the first public high school in Sherborn, with Mr. Baker receiving $40 a month for his services, exclusive of the cost of board. Students twelve years of age and older could be admitted to the high school upon examination in the following areas: Reading, Orthography, Writing, Tower's Elements of Grammar, Colburn's First Lessons, and Written Arithmetic as far as compound numbers.
152 Sherborn
Dowse High School remained an independent school until the close of the spring term in 1873. In addition to this fine new high school, Sherborn in 1860, still operating under the district system, had seven district schools. District One was the Center School, the third building to be so called and the second built on this site. This new Center School, built in 1859, was a two-story structure of two rooms and furnished with "convenient desks and chairs in lieu of the old wooden benches," and was considered to be "in prosperous condition and a large school though somewhat difficult of management." District Two was the Plain School, built in 1834, when the Center District was divided (now remodeled into the home at 60 North Main Street). Because there was no playground for the children on such a busy roadway, the building was moved many yards back, and an iron bucket with a pump placed before it. It was moved back to the roadside when it became a house. District Three was the West School, on Western Avenue, opposite the end of Pleasant Street. In 1859, a new schoolhouse was built to replace the original and must have been quite impressive as it is described as "modern, with a convenient arrangement for the scholars at the blackboard, with maps, and room for visitors."
Education 153
The building was moved from the site, and this property, with the old pump still standing, was purchased by the Conservation Commission in 1973. District Four was the South School and lay on the right of South Main Street just south of and opposite the entrance of Snow Street. This had been a wooden structure and the School Com-
154 Sherborn
Education 155
mittee suggested that "It would do well to place a few posts around this house, not only to accommodate visitors, but to prevent the tying of horses to the trees and parts of the building." It was replaced by a brick building whose foundation is still visible. District Five was the North School in what is now Framingham. In this period of the 1860s, it was a very small school averaging only about ten students. District Six was the Southwest School, built in 1822, when the people in this area separated from the South School. It stood first in the fork of Mill Street and Nason Hill Road, and then in two different locations on the property now numbered 43 Mill Street. It was enlarged in 1860, and provided a "larger, more pleasant and healthful, and in every respect more convenient" classroom. This district enjoyed the privilege of three terms.
156 Sherborn District Seven was the Farm School, which stood on the north side of Farm Road and east of Lake Street, where these roads cross. The total school expenditures in 1861, including salaries, boarding expenses, supplies for the classrooms, wood for heat, and the additional cost of sawing it and making the fires, was $1870.50.
Though the School Committee urged the establishment of the town instead of the district system, so that they could receive the maximum amount of $75 in state aid, under the newly-enacted Legislative law, the Town voted to retain control of its educational system and refused to make the change. The District system remained in effect in Sherborn until it was abolished by State Law. When this occurred in 1869, the School Committee was given the responsibility of all the schools. An advantage of town control was to attain a certain uniformity of the length of the school year which had previously varied widely, dependent on the size and wealth of the district and upon the health of the
Education 157 teacher. Additionally, the School Committee could assign teachers to the schools they were best fitted to teach, and benefits from appropriations were equalized for pupils in all parts of town. With the abolishment of the districts, the numbers by which the several districts had been known disappeared, and the schools became known respectively as the Center, Plain, West, South, North, Southwest and Farm Schools. The school report for 1870 makes a most important announcement, namely, a bequest to the town by Martha Sawin of Natick, to establish "a select school in the centre of the town." Her ancestor, Thomas Sawin, had operated Sherborn's first sawmill, which was situated on Course Brook, and had supplied the lumber for the town's first church edifice. He had removed to Natick to run the grist and sawmill for the Praying Indians on Indian Brook. Here, on what is now Broadmoor, his descendant, Martha Sawin, lived all her life and kept house for her two brothers, all three being unmarried, and they carried on the mills and farms until well advanced in age. When Martha was the lone survivor and had decided how she wanted to dispose of her estate, she called in the Judge of the Probate Court at Dedham and asked him to make out the necessary papers expressing her wishes. She came from a family of practical persons and wanted things properly handled. She devised $500 to each of the two religious societies then in Sherborn and a large sum of money for an academy to bear her name, for free instruction of the youth. Jonathan Holbrook, Edmund Dowse, Abijah R. Leland, Amos Bullard and Amos Bigelow were appointed Trustees of Sawin Academy and Dowse High School, as the new institution was to be known, and they reported at the Town Meeting in 1871, that the wood timber and part of the real estate included in the Martha Sawin bequest had been sold, and a site for the school bought of the Russell heirs for $2,000. The total value of the bequest was $42,324.16, of which $20,000 was expended in the erection of a brick building upon the site selected, an attractive natural park in the center of the village. The dedication took place September 10, 1873, a "beautiful day and in the midst of a large audience." Among those present were Vice President Wilson, Judge Bacon, Judge White of Dedham, and other distinguished guests. The school opened September 16, 1874, with 64 pupils, seven of whom were from out of town. They were under the principalship of Edward A. H. Allen, a strict disciplinarian. He required
158 Sherborn boys to enter the building by the basement door, to remove their shoes and to put on slippers so as not to scratch the new floors. Curriculum at the Academy as reported in 1878, was quite extensive. "As in most Academies, Latin was studied by but a portion of the scholars. For the others, a course of lessons in English Grammar, Composition and Literature has taken its place...In general the Course comprises History, both Ancient and Modern, besides a special study of the History of England; a review by the school of Geography, by the use of our excellent Wall Maps, and the Globe; the Sciences of Physiology, Physics, Mineralogy, Botany, Mechanics and Chemistry, with the Elements of Astronomy; Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry, English Reading and Literature, with special study of Milton and Shakespeare; and Free-Hand Drawing. There are classes constantly, also, in Latin, and besides these, lessons have been given as occasion required, in Book-Keeping, Mechanical Drawing, Trigonometry, Greek, Writing, and Spelling, Gymnastics, Singing, Elocution and French. The Course is thus a somewhat flexible or elastic one, adapting itself to the varying needs of those following it."' Entrance to the academy was at first by examination, but in 1878, following the recommendation of the Principal, "it was decided to admit pupils, without examination, at the age of fourteen years," the reason being, "there are in most of our districts, both boys and girls who, from various causes, although fifteen years of age or older, would be unable to pass a satisfactory examination to enter the Academy. Their presence, however, in the other schools is often prejudicial to the interests of those schools, which consist mainly of little children. They need a different discipline and different methods of instruction." The following year the age of admission was raised to fifteen. The school "year" until the mid-1880s ran from April through the following February and was divided into three terms: Summer, Fall and Winter with the largest attendance generally occurring during the Winter term when the students were not needed at home. The terms were then changed to Fall, Winter and Spring as we now know them, and by vote of the 1897 Town Meeting, the school year was extended from 34 to 36 weeks. According to law in 1884 "every person having under his control a child between the ages of eight and fourteen years shall annually cause such child to attend some public school, at least twenty weeks in each year; and for every neglect of such duty, the offending party shall forfeit to the use of the public schools of the town a sum not exceeding $20.
Education 159 Unfortunately attendance in the public schools was sporadic, to say the least, and for years the School Committees in their annual reports to the Town, found it necessary to remind parents of the need to send their children to school. It was suggested as early as 1860 that a bounty of from ten to twenty dollars be paid the district having the best attendance, and in 1867, the Committee wrote, "There has been too much absence from school during the past year. Parents are too prone to keep their children from school, or to allow them to remain away for other cause than sickness. Children should understand that study is their business, and, as in other kinds of businesses, the more diligently and punctually it is followed the greater will be the advantage and profit to them." The report of 1898 reads, "Noticeable is the tendency for students to drop out after the first and second years of the high school course... The Course of study is now equal to that of the average high school in the state... But the facts need to be more generally realized, that boys and girls...need all the training the high school can give them, if they are to have a fair start in life." Concern for behavior and language, too, appears frequently, with the 1860 report paying much attention to the insubordination and profanity of some of the pupils, and urging the need of better home training. In 1877, the School Committee wrote, "Special attention should be given to the moral training of the pupils in our schools... The children are constantly receiving impressions and forming habits...They should be instructed in the proprieties and good manners of civilized and well-regulated society...The use of profane, vulgar and obscene language, is one of the great evils of public schools, and no pains should be spared to restrain and eradicate it." The School Committee noted, in 1881, that up to this time English grammar had been dry and difficult and that improved instruction in this area was imperative. A few years later, the Committee was contacted by the State and County superintendents urging that Temperance Instruction be given in connection with physiology as it was a subject of great importance to the rising generation. The Committee was also reminded of a recent law requiring that this subject be taught. The vote to build the last of Sherborn's 'neighborhood schools' was passed at the Town Meeting in 1886. The new school, to be called Beaver Brook, was in what is now Framingham, and opened
160 Sherborn in 1887, housing the younger children in the North District, the older children continuing at the North School. The building of one large central graded school was discussed for many years with the 1890 report noting the reluctance of townspeople to "send their young children so far from home, for so long a time," and the fear of those living in outlying areas that their real estate may depreciate in value if no school was near. In 1891, a report by a committee, appointed to study consolidation of three smaller schools with Center School, was read. The Town, nevertheless, voted in favor of keeping a school in every district as more convenient to the inhabitants, under a Superintendant. In 1908, Sherborn needed a new school, and the following was recorded:
It was intended that all Sherborn schools with the exception of North Sherborn be consolidated into three schools, according to the 1890 plan. The original part of the present Center School was completed in 1910. It had four classrooms and housed eight grades - two per room. The school stood upon land leased from Sawin Academy for which an annual rental of $500 was paid, that sum being used toward the salary of an assistant teacher, The year 1910 also saw the unification of the schools. The Academy, by special act of the Legislature, became a public high school under the authority of the School Committee, and the Academy Trustees merely retained control of the property and endowment funds. The salaries of teachers had increased to an average of $12 per week, and the amount of money necessary to maintain the schools was of concern to the School Committee, the administration and the townspeople. The school 'barges' were all horsedrawn until 1915, when the first auto truck was employed. Later, Model-T trucks were used. These, also called barges, looked like army trucks with benches on each side and a canvas top for bad weather. The back was open
Education 161
and doubled as an emergency door. In 1928, the School Committee insisted that all school busses be closed at the rear and the children enter and leave through the cab beside the driver. Soon thereafter, this became a State regulation. In addition to the traditional academic subjects, sewing, which had been authorized by State law in 1876, was introduced to Sherborn girls in grades five through eight in 1910, with great success. In 1915, the special sewing instructor reported girls in Grade 5 making a dish towel and bean bag; in Grade 6, a kimono apron and bean bag; and in Grades 7 and 8, a chemise and simple crocheting. A sewing machine was later purchased for the classes, enabling the students to greatly increase training and productivity. The boys in Grades 7 and 8 were taught practical lessons in knifework, but by 1913. that had been changed to printing and manual training, both very popular over a number of years. Music and drawing were also taught by special supervisors at the Center School, with a high degree of success. The annual reports of the Superintendent repeatedly praised the new Center School and the foresightedness of the townspeople in building such a structure.
162 Sherborn The Superintendent wrote in 1917, "The schools have never before required more thoughtful attention to their needs." That year a budget increase from $11,520 to $11,713 was being considered and with 222 pupils in the Sherborn schools, the increase amounted to 87’ per child. For several years in the period 1910-1930, the matter of the conveyance of scholars to school was noted at length in the reports of the Superintendent and School Committee. At the discretion of the School Committee, students living some distance from the new centralized school were transported by 'barge' as were some of the students attending the high school, with extra pay afforded the drivers who transported the latter. Each year there were more children who wished to ride the barge and seldom did a driver feel adequately paid. At one time the per-pupil transportation costs were three times the average for other small towns, With $10.85 per pupil being spent on transportation, $15.18 on teacher salaries, $8.29 on maintenance and fuel, and $2.82 on books and supplies, the School Committee in 1914 observed, "Our schools should be well equipped and have the best of teachers, but it may be possible to do too much for the best good of the children. Children ought to do something for their own education. Transportation costs the Town a great deal. In the 'Good Old Days' parents were willing and anxious to do much for the education of their children; and the children themselves would walk a long distance, struggle to earn money to buy books and pay tuition. But alas! how changed today! In some cases it has gone so far that the children expect a comfortable schoolhouse, equipped with books, supplies, apparatus and all possible devices to make mental work easy, and that an upholstered van shall come to their door and take them to the schoolhouse, and then, if they do not get a few facts or ideas into their heads, the teacher or the Committee is at fault." An interesting observation appears in the 1922 report of the Superintendent. "It is a well-known fact that we as a people are the most wasteful nation in the world. Our enormous natural resources have made this possible. But the time is at hand when we must call a halt. Waste must give way to thrift. We see our vast forests dwindling rapidly, the demand now far exceeding the supply. Our mineral wealth is being similarly depleted, resulting in scarcity and high prices. The schools have it in their powers largely to correct these wrongs by proper training so that oncoming generations may be more thrifty and farseeing. We are living too much for today and too little for tomorrow."
Education 163 While much attention was being given the new, modern brick Center School, the students living in North Sherborn were still attending classes in the Beaver Brook and North School houses, both of which were overcrowded. The eighth grade from North Sherborn attended school in the center, and the remaining grades had been regrouped, temporarily resolving some of the problems. By vote of the 1923 Town Meeting a committee was appointed to establish the most desirable plan and to approximate the cost of a new school building for North Sherborn. With the annexation of North Sherborn to Framingham in 1924, however, the North and Beaver Brook schools were transferred to the Framingham School Department. The report of the School Committee in 1924 states in part, "In accordance with the vote of the Town, the Committee installed flush toilets at the Center building with a septic tank large enough to care for the High School building when flush toilets are installed there. An electric ventilator was put in. A new automatic pump was installed which necessitated poles and wires for connection with the Edison system. All necessary carpentry work and painting were done and the Committee is pleased to report that it has kept within its appropriation." Electric lights were installed in the Center building in 1925 and flush toilets in the High School in 1929. Heat and ventilation were also added to the High School in 1930, greatly adding to the comfort of both teachers and students. The length of the school year was increased from 38 to 40 weeks in 1927, and that same year it was noted that Sherborn had no school with more than two grades per teacher. Mentioned also was the addition of a library room at the high school in 1928. The schools in town changed little in the thirties. The nationwide depression increased school attendance in many areas, there being fewer jobs available for those who left before graduation, but there was very little change in school enrollment here. Students were active in the Boy Scout and Campfire Girl groups, both of which were highly regarded by the School Committee. The Parent-Teacher Association, established in 1914, was re-activated in 1931, and served the schools well in beginning a noon hot-lunch program which they ran until the program sponsorship was transferred (following initiation of a Federal subsidy for that purpose) to the School Department in 1946. The P.T.A. also held "helpful" meetings and sponsored fund-raising activities to benefit the schools. Curriculum changes were few, and in 1933. the course of study at the High School included English, mathematics, history,
164 Sherborn
Education 165 science, foreign language, manual training, music and drawing. Some commercial courses were also offered at the High School during the depression years. The School Committee felt it imperative to keep pace with changes in the business world. In the years 1929-1933, 23 pupils graduated from Sherborn's High School. Of these, five went on to college, two into further training such as nursing, and the others, for the most part, stayed home.A course in safety education was begun in the elementary grades in 1930. Economics, sociology, public speaking and journalism were introduced at the High School in 1933, as were fine arts, mechanical drawing and civics in 1936. A penmanship supervisor was hired in 1937, for the elementary grades, "bringing up the standard of penmanship to a surprising degree." Also, in 1937, guidelines of expected achievement by grade levels were established in arithmetic. There was no organized athletic program in the Sherborn schools until 1937, when a part-time physical education teacher was hired. This was felt to be especially valuable to the lower grades in teaching correct posture and health habits, and to the high school girls " as they had previously had very little organized play." The sports program at the High School was strictly extracurricular and consisted of baseball, tennis and basketball for boys. It was noted that " we also have a football which the boys use in suitable weather." Although the 'new' Center School served Sherborn well from 1910 through the war, and Sawin Academy was remodeled in 1933, the Superintendent's report in 1947 states, "Substandard elementary and 'very poor' high school buildings cause Sherborn to consider new facilities." In 1948, the School Committee was instructed to cooperate with the Dover and/or Holliston School Committees in making a further study of the possibility of a regionalized junior-senior high school, and long-range plans were recommended as the result of a citizens' participatory survey held in 1947. Sawin Academy operated as the Town's high school until 1949. The old building was razed in 1962 and the cornerstone was placed on the site in 1963. In 1949 there were 138 pupils enrolled in Grades 1 through 8 in Sherborn and, for the first time, the first, second, third and fourth grades were housed in separate rooms. Grades 9 through 12 were attending school in Framingham on a tuition basis. The year 1950 was one of change in the Sherborn schools. In
166 Sherborn April the School Committee petitioned the State Commissioner of Education for dissolution of Sherborn's Union Superintendency with Wayland and Sudbury, and for establishment of a new Union Superintendency with Dover, which was approved in May. A new wing was added to the Center School in 1950, enlarging the building from four rooms to eight, while a total renovation of the older section was undertaken. With room now available, the Town expressed the desire to introduce a kindergarten class to the public school system, and this was begun in 1950, with 20 pupils. While the renovation and building were in progress, students from Grades 1 through 6 were temporarily housed in the Sawin Academy building and the Kindergarten met in the Town Hall. One of the most difficult features of the temporary housing was the cafeteria problem. It was thought, at first, that the use of the church kitchen and dining room would be possible. The long walk to the church in bad weather and the danger of crossing a main highway, Sanger Street, seemed to make this plan unsatisfactory. Mrs. Heffron and Mrs. Crowley solved the problem by preparing food at home and serving it in the lower hallway of the Academy building. The cost of a hot lunch at school was 20’. The Superintendent wrote, in 1950, "It seems to me that, with the completion of the new school, Sherborn will have a fine school system in operation. Some of the advantages we enjoy are a kindergarten, an assistant teacher for grades one through six, supervisory assistance in music, art and penmanship. The Audubon Society classes are a fine part of our school program. We have the services of a school doctor and school nurse who are doing a good job to safeguard our boys' and girls' health. We have a well-conceived program of visual education. These are all in addition to the more formal classroom instruction found in all schools." The Center School was finished in February, 1951, and an open house gave the people an opportunity to inspect the building. There was an enthusiastic turnout and the general reaction to the whole project was very favorable. Sherborn voters first considered regionalization in 1951, when, at a Special Town Meeting, the Moderator was instructed to appoint a committee of three to study regional school district planning with a corresponding committee of three from Dover. It was thought by the school administration that, with the sudden rapid increase in school population, Sherborn's payment to Framingham would be
Education 167 sizable for the education of Sherborn's high school students and that each town, or a joint committee of both towns, should control the educational policies pertaining to their own young people. However, despite recommendations favoring regionalization, the voters of Sherborn and Dover did not approve the plan. Since that time. however, school expansion has progressed steadily. The Pine Hill School, housing grades 4 through 8, opened in September, 1957. When Dover and Sherborn joined in an agreement to regionalize Grades 9 through 12, the Regional High School was built on Farm Street in Dover, and opened in 1962. Shortly after its opening, plans were started to seek to extend the regionalization to include Grades 7 and 8. Culmination of this planning led to conversion of the high school into a Regional Junior High School, and a new High School was completed on the same campus with some shared facilities. In 1971, additions were made to the Pine Hill School, giving the building a new media center, with three open 'pods' or classrooms and a new cafeteria. Thus, wood-burning stoves and gaslights have given way to oil furnaces and electricity; horse-drawn barges have been replaced by big yellow busses; and one-room schools by open pods, laboratories, gymnasiums and wood and metal shops. Henry Ward Beecher wrote in the mid-nineteenth century, "We should so live and labor in our time that what came to us as seed may go to the next generation as blossom, and what came to us as blossom may go to them as fruit.
This is what we mean by progress." Such a statement can be regarded as a reflection on Sherborn's past, as well as a hope for the future.
Library In 1860 Sherborn established its public library, thereby being one of the first towns in the State to take advantage of the recently passed Act by the General Court which permitted it. Prior to that time there existed two collections of books in town: one 'The Agricultural Library,' known sometimes as the 'Farmers' Library' which was maintained by Bowen Adams in his house at the corner of Farm Road and South Main Street: and the other, established in 1808, called 'The Social Library' and also known as the 'Proprietors' Library' was kept in George Clark's store. In those days apparently there was neither a limit to the number of books which could be taken out, nor was there any definite rule as to the return of the books. In consequence, from time to time, volumes marked 'Social Library' came to light in old attics or other places about town. In addition to these two collections, there was a small library which was for the benefit of the high school located in the Town Hall. At the establishment of the public library, the members of the two groups who had collections of books offered their volumes as its nucleus. Thereupon the Town voted to create a Board of Trustees, seven in number, to manage the Library. The initial collection totaled 883 volumes, including 167 purchased by the Town. (The Accession list of those volumes is still in possession of the Library.) Mr. Henry Bullard was appointed Librarian at a salary of $44.00 per year, and his daughter, Helen, was appointed his assistant. The Rev. Theodore H. Dorr of the First Parish Church was the first Chairman of the Board of Library Trustees and Mr. Joseph Dowse the first Treasurer. Dr. A. H. Blanchard arranged and helped catalog the books. That the Trustees more than a hundred years ago had their problems is shown by the following from their Annual Report to the Town in 1876, "There are many fictions to be had at present, to which the term 'trash' applies; the characters represented are disreputable, their language often indecent and profane; their effect on the tastes degrading; and though they are more pretentious in their claims for a reading, and have a popular author's name attached to them, they are not in truth above what is known as a 'dime' novel. If there is any place for these publications it is certainly not in a Public Library. In spite, however, of the best intentions of Library 168
Library 169 officers a few of these undesirable books have reached our shelves; a more careful scrutiny might have prevented this but it requires more time than is usually at the command of a Board of Trustees. In the late rearrangement of the Library some of these books were found, and, by unanimous vote, retired from circulation." In this connection, it is interesting to note that in 1968 the Board of Trustees of the Sherborn Library endorsed and included as part of the general policy of the Library the "Freedom to Read" statement as adopted by the American Library Association Council on June 25, 1953, and the "Library Bill of Rights" adopted June 18, 1948 and amended February 1, 1961. All through the years the inhabitants of Sherborn have been a highly literate people, even as measured by the almost constant annual growth in the circulation of library books. The bulk of the financial support of the Library nowadays is derived from a portion of the local real estate taxes supplemented by receipts of the dog tax and a State Grant, with some additional income for the purchase of special books received from two memorial funds. The Greenwood Fund, established in 1898 in the amount of $1,122.00, was given in memory of Aaron Greenwood, a long-time resident of Sherborn. The Dexter Fund was established in 1968 in the amount of $1,000 from the Dexter Estate to honor the memories of George T. Dexter and Evangeline Hope Dexter, also residents of Sherborn for many years. Through the generosity of William Bradford Homer Dowse, the Town received in 1914 a splendid new library building, given in memory of his mother and father his father, the Rev. Edmund Dowse, having been a long-time minister of Sherborn's Pilgrim Church. The Dowse Memorial Library, built on North Main Street in the center of town and dedicated with elaborate ceremonies on June 10, 1914, served adequately both as a library and as the home of the Sherborn Historical Society until 1968. To celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the Library, a book drive was held for the University of Ghana in 1960. This was begun during National Library Week in April. Each family in Sherborn was asked to give at least one book or to donate money. A gala celebration with printed programs was held June 1, 1960, and Mr. Alex Quaison-Sackey, Permanent Representative of Ghana to the United Nations, was present to accept the gift of more than 1,000 books and a check in the amount of $171.00 for the University Library. The books were packed and sent to the United Nations to be forwarded to Ghana.
170 Sherborn It was apparent to the Library Trustees in 1968 that the Town had outgrown the facilities of the Dowse Memorial Library. As studies for enlarging the building were begun, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Saltonstall, residents devoted to the interests of Sherborn for over 50 years, offered to present to the Town a new Library building. The generous offer being accepted, construction was begun soon thereafter and on January 10, 1971 the magnificent new library was dedicated. With its interior and exterior architectural aspects a delight to all townspeople, it offers a warm invitation to read and study and to make it the cultural center of the Town for many years to come. The flowering of our cultural life locally is expressed vividly by the following contrasting facts: in 1860 Sherborn's first public library was located in one small room in the Town Hall, containing 883 volumes and received an appropriation of $102.50. In 1974, Sherborn's public library is housed in a spacious facility with over 20,000 volumes and an annual budget in excess of $30,000. Inspired by the cultural enrichment the Library is providing the townspeople, a group known as the "Friends of the Library" was organized in 1970. Since then it has provided, at its own expense, illustrated lectures, exhibits of various kinds, book reviews, children's hours, and musical programs in the pleasing surroundings of the building itself. Through its generosity, too, special equipment has been added at the Library. Fully as generous are individuals who give thoughtfully selected books for the Library's collection, as have several local civic organizations.
The Revolution If you reckon time by English kings, it happened three Georges ago, and it was twelve midnight. Somewhere out in that night, Paul Revere and William Dawes cut through the darkness, bent on spreading the alarm. Sherborn householders, meanwhile, slept, though troubled by the undercurrents of political unrest, and though unaware that from across the sea, George the Third had pushed a red-coated fist at them and knocked them over the thin edge of Parliamentary negotiation into the Revolutionary War. The king thought it would be a nice little local revolution, or he might have hesitated, because he was busy elsewhere around the world. Indeed, it turned out to be a very local, very personal war. To be precise, it began at 5:30 a.m. that April 19, 1775, in neighboring Lexington and Concord. By 10:00 in the morning, the news reached the minutemen of Sherborn. Grabbing their familiar weapons, they said a hurried farewell and were off on the run through the cool misty spring morning. Colonists in other towns had no idea of what had happened until, sitting reverently in church on the following Sabbath, they jumped to their feet as the hurried cry, "War!" came from lips of dusty, agitated messengers. But Sherborn had already marched, and had already returned, for she had prepared herself. Sherborn was ready, willing and able to march, to face the British with those same famous eye-whites that were to signal the shots up Bunker Hill. King Philip had helped them to understand the necessity of preparedness 100 years before, by killing Lieutenant Henry Adams, a Sherborn landowner, Jonathan Wood, a son of the first settler, and by scalping his brother Eleazer, at the outset of the Indian War. It is not surprising to find that, as early as October 11, 1682, Sherborn had a company of soldiers. The General Court advised: "Whereas there is about fifty soldiers at Sherborn, in probability they will increase to a greater number in a short time, and they having no higher officer than a Sergeant, it is ordered by the Court and the authority thereof that Sergeant Edward West be Lieutenant to the said company and Jonathan Morse, Ensign, and they to choose two Sargeants, a drummer and clerk for the said company according as the Law directs and that the said company do belong to the regiment of 171 172 Sherborn Maj. Gookin and ye Secretary is ordered to issue both commissions for them." Later, from 1755 to 1763, fourteen Sherbornites went off to the French and Indian War. Among them were two who would figure importantly in Revolutionary history, Benjamin Bullard and Ensign Hezekiah Coolidge. By the time the Revolutionary War fell upon the struggling colonists, Sherborn had by vote in the Town Meeting prepared not only a fighting force, but the means of maintaining it. They needed clothes, salt-peter, cannon, spiritual comfort, weapons, money, food and marching music. Therefore, the Town erected a building for the storage of provisions for the Army and a guard was stationed over it. When Mr. Emlyn Sparhawk dug the cellar to his house in 1833 (86 North Main Street), posts were found placed close together, undoubtedly a part of the stockade around the storehouse. In 1777, Sherborn men were drafted for six months and stationed to guard military stores in Sherborn and Mystic, Mass. To fill the needs mentioned above, the following records show the Town's action; July 8, 1774 Military History 173
The Inspection Roll of Capt. Moses Babcock's Company of Cavalry lists as officers, Capt. Moses Babcock, two Lieutenants, and one Cornet, or standard bearer. Immediately under these officers were three sergeants, one drummer and a trumpet. Each man was outfitted with one horse, a pair of boots and spurs, pair of pistols, pair of holsters, sword and belt, one cartridge box and two flints; and each article was set against the name of the man to whom it was issued, William Donnison, the Adjutant General and Inspector General, instructed Moses Babcock and others as follows: "The Commanding Officers of Companies will also see that every column is footed, and that the whole number of rank and file is noted so that the Inspecting Officer, when he receives the Roll, may see at one view, the State of the Company; and every Commanding Officer of a Company will have his Inspection Roll in his pocket, ready to be delivered to the Inspecting Officer on demand." Unlike Henry Thoreau later in the century, Sherborn definitely marched to its own drummer during the Revolution. August 26, 1776, the Town " ...voted and granted 6s to Jonas Greenwood for Procuring a fife for Capt. Aaron Gardner's Co." At age 18, Ebenezer Babcock marched off as drummer as did Lemuel Dill; Zibeon Hooker, drummer in Capt. Benjamin Bullard's Company, rose to be a Lieutenant in the Continental Army, After the war he served as Town Constable. His home stood across from the Cross Street triangle on Mill Street on land that became known as "Zibeon's Acres." The sharp, cheerful notes of the fife quickened weary feet, and the final tune every fifer learned was "The World Turned Upside Down," which rang in the ears of Cornwallis at Yorktown. Sherborn had a fifer with each company Bela Greenwood in Capt. John Home's; John Phipps, age 19, with Capt. Henry Leland's; William Pradex, with Capt. Benjamin Lock's; Samuel Russell with Benjamin Bullard's where Zibeon Hooker was drummer; and Silas Stone, age 21, with Capt. Aaron Gardener's company. The Town, having provided the requirements of 1775, voted on August 26, 1776, that "The Selectmen have Liberty to Set up a Hospital for the innoculation of the Small Pox if they can get Liberty from the Court." Soldiers and their families alike feared the disease
174 Sherborn which had marred even the face of General Washington. By remarkable good luck, Sherborn had salt-peter. Jedediah Phipps, a member of the Convention at Concord in 1779, and holder of many town offices, produced several pounds of salt-peter of his own manufacture for the General Court when the army was almost without ammunition at the beginning of the struggle. Since he knew how to manufacture it and where to find it in the earth, the Colony hired him to improve on his discovery and to train others. No one knows where all the salt-peter needed for manufacturing powder during the war came from. Some of it did come from Mammoth Cave, to the north of Coolidge Street, and Sherborn presented the following certificate: "This certifies that Samuel Sanger, Moses Perry, Edward Perry and Edward Learned have manufactured a quantity of salt petre in Sherborn. Sherborn, April 22, 1776 John Grout, Daniel Whitney, Selectmen of Sherborn." Nor was salt-peter the only contribution. Thomas Holbrook, whose home now stands at 91 South Main Street, practiced his trade as gunsmith during the Revolutionary period and provided the minutemen with accurate fowling pieces. Lieut. Moses Perry received his commission for moulding bullets, but remained at his home on Brush Hill to pursue his craft (house not standing). In order to make sure that the men were warm following that terrible winter at Valley Forge, the Town voted January 26, 1778, "to procure some cloathing for our Soldiers in the Continental Army", and "to procure a Person at the Best Lay they can to carry sd Cloathing to our Soldiers, and that he set out by Wednesday the 4 Day of Feb'y next." Then in March, "Granted £145 ls 6d to the Com. who procured Cloathing for the Soldiers and for Transportation of same." The Town possesses a document signed by Samuel Clark, Benjamin Whitney and Jonathan Tuz, dated September 1778, indicating that, of the 17 suits delivered to the Soldiers, "the five remaining suits sold along with three shirts, five pairs of stockings." To enlist men, in 1776, "Seven pounds per man in addition to the bounty already offered" was voted to the 21 men who would enlist to go to Canada. Hiring men to serve at specific times fell to Joseph Twitchell, and his carefully-kept records in 1780 show not only the expense but the difficulties involved. "To time spent hiring two men to go to Dorchester when Capt. Lealand went, and Settling with them, 12.: to time spent bying corne for soldiers, 24." The Town Committee had hired Timothy Kendall, Gotham Brick, and John Gaf-
Military History 175 ford, besides a gun taken out of the Town Store for 3 1/2 months. The Town carefully preserves the documents mentioned here.
176 Sherborn
These men proved their heroism throughout the entire war, including the historic battles of Bunker Hill, White Plains and Brandywine. Their enlistment and service varied from five days to a period covering the entire war. Not every soldier came home. Jonathan Holbrook and Joseph Ware. marching side by side at the Battle of White Plains, had a cannon ball pass between them, cutting off the right arm of one and the left arm of the other. Holbrook died, but Ware recovered and lived to become an able surveyor, Selectman, Clerk and Treasurer of Sherborn. The single citizen of Sherborn called upon at the greatest moment of crisis for the Town and for the Country was not a military man. Daniel Whitney is described by Morse as "a leader of men, an able patriotic citizen early and long in public life, during the Revolutionary struggle an efficient instrument in arousing and directing the energies of his fellow citizens. He was a member of the Provincial Congress, 1775; Representative, 1776; member of the convention to form the State Convention, 1780; and of that which adopted the Federal Constitution in 1788; and between 1781 and 1799, he represented Sherborn 14 years in the House, was for several sessions a
Military History 177 member of the Senate, and repeatedly one of the Executive Council." Born in 1733, he died in 1810, one of our country's great citizens. Brief records of some particular soldiers have come down through the years. Joseph Dowse, later known as Deacon Joseph, was drafted in 1777 and stationed at Sherborn and Mystic, Mass., guarding military stores. Jonathan Holbrook, born in Sherborn, enlisted April 24, 1775, and appeared on the muster roll as Corporal. This Jonathan Holbrook was grandfather of Jonathan who founded the famous cider mills. Mr. Joseph Ware was a private in Capt. Benjamin Bullard's company of Minutemen, and Col. Samuel Bullard, 5th Middlesex Regiment, gave more than three years of service. Seven sons of Samuel Clarke enlisted as soldiers and served an average of over three years per man. After the war, Sherborn men returned to their farms and began the work of making a nation. The War of 1812 Sherborn rallied promptly to her duty in the War of 1812 and voted "to allow and pay to the soldiers that are or may be detached from this town....$15 per month during the time they shall be in actual service." Two Sherborn men gave their lives in this War; James Dowse and Isaiah Woodcock. The Civil War The year 1861 is part of an era long to be remembered. When the President issued his proclamation for troops, Sherborn again was ready. As early as May 1, 1861, a committee had been appointed to prepare resolutions, which were adopted as follows:
178 Sherborn we will throw aside all party feeling, and with a firm reliance on the blessing of God, pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to uphold and perpetuate the Government and institutions of the United Slates. A military school was formed for drill under the direction of an instructor, and aid in meeting the expense was granted by the Town. In November 1861, $500 was granted toward the support of families of volunteers, and a bounty of $175 was offered to each volunteer from the town, at one of the frequent meetings on the subject of the war which highlighted that year. In 1863, $3,000 was granted for aid to volunteers, and in 1864, $2,000 for the same purpose. Private subscriptions and contributions supplemented the appropriations of the Town, and all these records show that Sherborn did her share, animated with patriotic feelings. Eighty-two of her citizens enrolled in the army, and of this number 19 laid down their lives in the battlefield, hospital and prison. Of those who lived to return to their homes, many came with shattered health and there were but few who did not bear the marks of wounds or the effect of disease contracted by the hardships and exposures of a soldier's life. The letters of Thomas Taber, the son-in-law of Augustus H. Leland, to his wife, Abbie Leland Taber, tell more eloquently than anything else what the Civil War meant to Sherborn. Thomas married Abbie Leland in 1858, when he was 23 years old, and made Sherborn his home, living with her family at 16 North Main Street. Two sons, William Thomas and Frank Howard Taber were born before he enlisted as Corporal in Company E, 16th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry in the Army of the Potomac.
Military History 179 From Baltimore in 1861, he wrote,
Camp McClellan
Baltimore, August 16,1861
Whitehouse Landing, Virginia
June 11,1862
Fair Oaks Camp
June 18,1862
180 Sherborn close by them, THE REBELS. I tell you picket duty is of some consequence here instead of going on as we used to, one company at a time a whole brigade go at once which is five brigades one goes in advance and the rest are a little ways behind them, what they call reserve, but still on guard just the same it's a long line as we only stand about four feet apart the reserve stand behind rifle pits which come up about as high as the breast this is where the advance brigade fall back in case of an attack ... I saw McClellan's balloon up yesterday. He gets a lot of news by that and sees what the rebels are doing. Military History 181 clear spring is found thousands rush for it and each man is lucky to get a canteen full. If a man is sick he gets no cure and even the wounded men are used about the same. The following is the last letter from Thomas Taber, dated Dec. 11, 1863, Castle Pemberton, Richmond, Va. My dear Wife, Thomas Taber died October 11, 1864, at Andersonville Prison, Georgia, and was buried there. Abbie received this letter from Augustus Leland, dated Boston, December 28, 1864; Abby, Actually, Thomas was dead and had been unable to walk the last four months of his life. Abbie Leland Taber raised her two sons, and lived a remarkable life. One son, Frank, died early in life of consumption but the other, Will, became a famous organist and a Major in the Army. He returned to spend his later life in Sherborn, where he died and was buried in Pine Hill Cemetery, with an inscription about his father on the side of his monument. 182 Sherborn
Grand Army of the Republic Encampment at Washington, D.C., 1915 Military History 183 Sherborn's resident doctor, Albert H. Blanchard, M.D., was appointed surgeon of the regiment which became known as the Third Massachusetts Cavalry and formed a part of the "Banks expedition" to Louisiana. The duty was onerous and severe and the climate malarious, so that Dr. Blanchard became weakened by sickness and was obliged to resign his commission. He was honorably discharged from the service in February of
1864. He recovered from this long sickness sufficiently to perform some temporary service in the army in Virginia before returning to Sherborn to resume his practice in August. He, too, has left many notes and letters written during those trying times.
Dowse, Rev. Edmund, Chaplain of the Christian Commission 184 Sherborn Spanish-American War Sherborn men have made the supreme sacrifice in every war. Even the Spanish American War in the final years of the last century, although not large in scope, claimed the life of Sherbornite Robert H. Dowse. Dowse had seen active service, but died of an illness at Montauk Point, Long Island, while on his return from the front. History has it that more men contracted fatal illness during this conflict than died of enemy bullets. In January, 1949, the passing of the last Spanish American War veteran from Sherborn was noted in the death of George H. McIlvaine who had endeared himself to the children as the driver of the school barge. World War I "Sherborn had always performed her duty in great emergencies: she did it now." These words of veteran Dr. Albert H. Blanchard in reference to the Civil War would also be true in the Twentieth Century when Sherborn young men went to fight in the wars that raged around the world. To few was given the vision of the gathering war clouds in 1917, and almost without warning the world was engaged in a conflict without precedent in the magnitude of the losses to the nations of the world in life and treasure. Records of World War I list the names of 71 men who left this small farming community to fight for their country;
Military History 185
Those left at home spent every effort to help, and the ladies gave every spare moment to Red Cross work. The sewing group first held their meetings at the Town House, but it was a cold winter and when it proved to be too chilly, they moved to the downstairs hall of the new library and the sewing machines whirred away there. Clothing for the men was cut out in the homes and stitched together here at the several busy machines. Knitting needles clicked all over town to produce an unbelievable number of sweaters, scarves
186 Sherborn
Military History 187 and socks. Another branch of the Red Cross, the Special Aid Society, did work for the Navy League and for hospitals in France. Finally it was over, and on November 1, 1919, the Town proudly inaugurated a "Welcome Home Day" to honor her returned World War I men, with American flags and signs reading "Welcome Home" strung across Main Street. The day started with a ball game at the playground, "Servicemen vs. picked nine." The parade then formed on the common and marched to Dowse's Corner and countermarched to the Town Hall with the uniformed men in the lead, one even in dress kilt. An open touring car was provided, for veterans of former wars wanted to be included and some were very aged men, including four who had fought in the Civil War. The Red Cross ladies wore their long white uniforms and caps and marched right behind 'the boys' and the band kept everyone stepping lively. At the Town Hall, there were the exercises which culminated in one of the Red Cross ladies pinning a memento on each of the soldiers everyone was so glad to have back home again in Sherborn. The Waltham Watch Company Band gave a concert on the Common, followed by a banquet at Unity Hall and a dance at the Town Hall a great and happy day. The Memorial which is dedicated "In Memory of the Men of Sherborn Who Gave Their Lives in Defense of Their Country" was donated in 1924, by William B. H. Dowse. This is constructed of granite, measuring 30 feet by 20 feet and is fashioned in the Roman Doric style, by architect William W. Dinsmore of Boston. Its most impressive feature is a bronze statue representing 'Memory' by Cyrus E. Dallin, also known for his 'Appeal to the Great Spirit,' that stands in front of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The 8-foot figure is that of a woman, with downcast face in an attitude of pensive remembrance of the sons of Sherborn who gave their lives for their country in wars from 1674 to 1918. The subject is linked with the conflict of World War I by a metal helmet wreathed with a chaplet of laurel which she holds in her encircling arm. On either side of the statue bronze tablets have been set into the stonework which bear the names of the honored dead of this period. World War II On the infamous December seventh of 1942, Sherborn reacted to the attack on Pearl Harbor as she had when her liberty and unity had been assailed before. Her young men entered the fray in groups
188 Sherborn and they went in early and stayed long, serving in all theatres of battle. They went off 125 strong, and two of that number died in service. Records of World War II list the names of Sherborn men who entered the military;
*Died in Service Military History 189
When the boys had all come back, a Welcome Home Banquet and Dance was given by the William A. Bosworth Post 237 of the American Legion, on May 8, 1946, and the Women's Auxiliary prepared and served one of their great dinners at the Pilgrim Church Vestry with the dance following at the Town Hall. Arthur Denny's orchestra provided the music and the High School Junior Class served refreshments at intermission. The boys were home again and their names appeared under the title of "Sherborn Honor Roll" on the program that the Legion provided as a memento of the great occasion. The young people gradually settled back into the life of the town. It was voted to erect a wooden-framed tabulation across from the Memorial, in the triangle, and include the names of those who had served in World War II. In 1969, this was replaced by the marble stone which stands there, etched simply, "Honoring Sherborn Citizens Who Served in the Military to Preserve Man's Freedom."
190 Sherborn
Military History 191 Korean and Vietnam Wars Because of the different nature and conditions surrounding the Korean and Vietnam Wars, records concerning Sherborn's participation are not available in as precise a manner as in previous conflicts. Any attempt at a complete listing of those who went from Sherborn could certainly result in omissions. Accordingly, only those who died during their active service are memorialized;
These names encircle the base of the flagpole standing before the War Memorial, along with the names of the two men who gave their lives in World War II. This flagpole and its marble base are a more recent attempt of the Sherborn people to include and memorialize these men along with their patriotic predecessors who appear on the War Memorial. Memorial Day Observance has always been made of Memorial Day, with the first official action taken at the annual Town Meeting in 1885, allocating $75 for what was then called Decoration Day. Acting on the committee for Memorial Day observance were honorably discharged soldiers until, in 1935, a standing committee was authorized. To the present day, the Bosworth Post Legionnaires have been active .participants in the Memorial Day observance, attending ceremonies in the schools, and organizing, directing and marching in the parade each year, with one member, Ralph Moore, participating for more than 50 years until his death in April, 1973. He served as parade marshal for most of this time. Traditionally a small home-town parade, it includes each year the Board of Selectmen, the clergy, war veterans, Bosworth Post members and Auxiliary units, the Dover-Sherborn Regional High School Marching Band and youth groups, who march down Main Street from the ballfield and up the road to Pine Hill Cemetery. Brief ceremonies honoring the war dead are conducted here at the Veterans' Lot and include a rifle salute and taps. The parade then proceeds to the War Memorial, where wreaths are placed
192 Sherborn and benediction offered. Here, too, a salute is fired, taps played and a moment of silence is observed. The William A. Bosworth, Post 237 American Legion, was chartered at Sherborn on December 11, 1919, adopting its name in honor of a Sherbornite who gave his life in defense of our country during World War I. Its establishment was largely inspired by the "Welcome Home" day given the Sherborn veterans. Major George P. Carter was elected the first Post Commander and it is interesting to note that two of the charter members, Frederick Blanchard and George Clark, have maintained continuous membership to the present time, 54 years. At Town Meeting in 1920, the Legion group was granted use of the 'vacant' room in the Town House, and here they held their meetings for a few years. The Auxiliary Unit of the Post, composed of relatives of Legion members, was formed in September of that year. The Legion has maintained an active interest in preserving the ideals of our democratic form of government, with specific attention given to school children. It also applies special attention to the welfare of disabled or hospitalized veterans. The quarters of the Post are on Maple Street, at the corner of Green Lane, in a building begun in 1926 and completed in 1929, a proud accomplishment of the members and their friends. Here is a bronze tablet bearing the names of those men who enlisted from the Town of Sherborn in World War I, a gift from the townspeople at the Annual Town Meeting of 1936, bearing the inscription, "Dedicated by the Town of Sherborn in Memory of her citizens who served in the Armed Forces of the United States during the World War." The Honor Roll which stood in the fork where Washington and Main Streets meet, and the Memorial Stone which now replaces it, as well as the Flagpole Memorial next to the Memory Statue, were all provided by the Town as a result of the Legion request initiated to insure continued recognition of patriotic endeavor. The sacrifices of the sons and daughters of Sherborn, and those of their families, are recorded indelibly across the pages of her 300-year history. The sentiments of the Sherborn people about her heroes are best expressed in the closing lines of the address given at the dedication of the Town's Memorial in 1924: "It is our duty and privilege to save from forgetfulness, the sufferings and sacrifices, the valor and the fortitude, the
Military History 193 love of home and of country, which inspired and guided the young men of Sherborn in all the wars which the history of their country records in the past three hundred years. In imagination we see that long procession of young men of many generations and for what they did and what they dared we remember them. Next to our American Flag floats the white flag of Massachusetts, the Indian upon the blue shield, above it the uplifted arm, in its hand the sword fashioned after the sword of the military leader of the Pilgrim company, around it the motto, strong and true
'Ense petit placidam sub liberatate quietem' which paraphrased reads, 'Peace, prosperity and liberty have been won for this people by the sword.' Liberty is not a boon but a conquest, won only by labor and suffering and sacrifice. All human history teaches that God grants home and country and liberty to those only who love them and are ever ready to guard and to defend them."
Blank Page "Ye Was Born to Die" (from a Puritan Sampler) Catch but a fleeting glimpse of them in the pale early morning light, and they are like stooped old gray ladies toiling toward an Eternal Market Place, bending into the wind fragile, thin, some taller than others, yet somehow frozen in time within the walled confines that form the Sherborn Cemetery bounds. These are the precious stones in Sherborn's nine burying grounds: Old South, on the west bank of the Charles River, not far from Death Bridge; The Farm, on Farm Road; Central Ground, originally part of the Parish Common; The West, on Maple Street; The Brush Hill, on Perry Street; the Clara Barton, just opposite on Perry Street; the New South, on South Main Street near Forest; the Plain, on North Main Street near Everett Street; and the Pine Hill, in the center of town. The Old South Cemetery This cemetery is described in William Biglow's 1830 History of Sherburne as "probably the oldest in the town as the first settlers located themselves in its immediate vicinity. It lies unfenced in a pasture, is overrun with whortleberry, fern and other bushes, and many of the gravestones are prostrated and exposed to the trampling of horses and cattle. A number of the stones have the following inscription: 'died in the Memorable Mortality, A.D. 1754."' Hopestill Leland, 'b. 1580 in England, died in 1655,' became the first person to be buried there. Alarmed at the condition of this cemetery, the Sherborn Historical Society undertook its restoration, and in 1915 placed a boulder there in honor of the founders of the town. A crowd of 200 people from Sherborn and surrounding towns was eager to hear John Mason Batchelder, an historian of repute, say, "The Holliston Historical Society has copied all legible inscriptions of the memorial stones in this place of burial with great care and re- 195 196 Sherborn ports the names of but 21, with a large number of the interments evidently unmarked or such markers destroyed by the action of the elements, leading us to enquire, 'The Fathers, where are they?' as the graves of the heads of the family are often without means of identification." It is possible that many of the graves were left unmarked in those first trying years to prevent enemies from knowing how many of the settlers had perished, but it is known that many of the slate markers in olden days were used by youths as sleds... the slate zipping cleanly down the white snowy bank onto the river. Now, these stones are perhaps better preserved at the bottom of the Charles River than are the ones remaining.
Of those buried there, however, John Bliss Brainard, M.D. made a record of 33 headstones in 1905. "Of these, ten headstones could not be read. Many of these were rough brown field stones used as a marker for head and foot, and lacking in any attempt at inscription." The Medway Historical Society has record of a
Cemeteries 197 wooden sign erected in the middle of the old cemetery, long since gone, which read, "Captain George Fairbanks, son of Jonathan Fairbanks of Dedham, born in England, first settler in Medway, 1657, buried here in 1682. In this cemetery were also buried other settlers of Boggastow Farms, with their descendants." Captain Fairbanks has three children buried with him, one four months, one eleven months, and one attaining an age of one year and nine months, reminding us of how difficult it was then for children to reach adulthood.
198 Sherborn "In Memory of Mr. Benjamin Ware
This inscription is on the footstone of a grave between the two above. The headstone is lost, but it is safe to assume that the Memorable Mortality had exacted another victim from the Ware family. Also buried here was Mr. Thomas Holbrook, who settled first near Death's bridge, and died in 1705, as well as the widow of Capt. Joseph Morse, this being his second wife. Capt. Morse, however, had far fewer wives than Thomas Holbrook, for after the death of the first Mrs. Holbrook, there were three others who successfully filled the position, all four wives being from Weymouth, his former home. Now in the present day, even fewer stones are to be seen. The boulder so bravely erected in 1915, with its bronze tablet to catch the sun, has turned a soft turquoise green. Beyond the feathery green pine trees that hide it from the busy highway, the constant whirr of speeding automobiles seems remote and the nearby sound of a grasshopper going from blade to blade of grass assaults the ear. The Farm Cemetery This was a Morse family burial ground with the first burial recorded in 1688 and, according to Mr. Biglow, "This was unused for many years, after a few had been deposited in it, and was suffered to be overrun with wood. About 40 years ago the inhabitants again began to appropriate it to the use for which their ancestors designed it, and since that time it has been cleared, enclosed with a substantial stone wall and now makes a very decent appearance.
Cemeteries 199
A number of the ancient graves are covered in their whole length with rough stones, which is said to distinguish those which contain the remains of persons who died of the smallpox." By 1905, when John Brainerd copied the inscriptions, he wrote, "This cemetery contains 47 standing stones. Many were simple field stones, used as markers and without any inscription much space in the center and right of the ground is without any headstones, though the contour of the surface would indicate many graves." In 1887, H. L. Morse, Administrator of the Lemuel L. Morse Estate, made a gift to the Town of the Farm Cemetery, The Central Cemetery The third oldest burial ground in town is this one which was originally part of the church common and was formerly sometimes called Sanger Burying Ground. Here were buried the ministers of
200 Sherborn
Sherborn, all men distinguished for their learning, piety and judgment. Of the following epitaphs, the first serves to determine the time when this ground was first used as a burying place, and they all show the quaintness of the style of writing which was to remain fashionable for a century and a half. Elizabeth Cemeteries 201 Isaac Coolidge, Esq June 2, 1761 age 77, The latest date on a stone in this cemetery is 1828. In 1883, C. H. Dowse, chairman of the Cemetery Committee for Sherborn, copied the inscriptions on the remaining headstones to be sent to the New England Historic Genealogical Society.
The Western burying yard received for its first deposit, Mrs. Hannah Sarah Twitchell, who died September 29, 1791. The latest burial at the time of the official diagram of the cemetery showing the marble and slate headstones, is 1903. Mrs. Twitchell, only 25 when she died, was shortly followed by her two sons, aged seven and ten, who died in 1792. Close to her is an in-law, Captain Joseph Twitchell, leaving his wife and 12 children, 63 grandchildren and one great grandchild to mourn "the loss of a kind husband and parent."
202 Sherborn The Brush Hill Cemetery In a way, making a tour of the cemeteries is like visiting the various settlements of Sherborn as each ground is characteristic of the time it was used. For instance, there is something very rustic and open about the Old South Cemetery; gradually, as the early settlers gave way to new generations, the cemeteries became more elaborate. Brush Hill Cemetery is a mid-point. On an all-but-forgotten bit of land, under shaded trees, with the slate blue stones settling gently into the earth, is this cemetery, a gift to the Town from Joseph Perry Esquire, March 7, 1785. The first person to be buried there was Luther Perry, February 22, 1785. He had died at age 21, having three years service behind him at that young age. His Uncle Joseph Perry, who had given the land, did not die until April, 1789, in the 88th year of his life.
Adjacent to this quiet ground is a smaller, walled portion where a few faded white monuments and one or two new markers inform the passerby that here the earth covers those connected with the Reformatory. Now, the Clara Barton Cemetery directly across the street, a property of the Commonwealth, serves that purpose.
Cemeteries 203
The New South Land offered by Joseph Daniels for a burying ground was accepted by the Town in 1790. Many Daniels are to be found in the New South Cemetery, but Mrs. Hannah Ware who died with her newborn infant was the first to be deposited there, laid to rest with the tiny child in her arms. There are also many Lelands, Barbers, Bullards, Brecks, Gouldings, Clarks and Holbrooks from the old families as well as the Twiss family, who have graves dating from 1833 to 1906. One of the interesting names here is Mrs. China Ware, wife of Moses Burlen. When she was born in South Sherborn in 1786, the Stones in West Sherborn also had a daughter. One of the town's several retired ship's captains asked for the privilege of naming the babies and so these little girls grew up as China Ware and Cherry Stone. The Benjamin and Joseph Ware tombs, with the date of 1815, have no records of burials.
204 Sherborn
Cemeteries 205 The Plain Cemetery There is a plan of the Plain, or Friendly Society, Cemetery by which any stone can be readily located. The text is arranged according to row and each row is made from the center avenue outward; the Galen Bowditch Tomb with its seven inscriptions in the rear center; the Sanger monument on the right and another tomb of Tucker and Stratton closer to the road. In 1792, Mr. Andrew Newell and 15 others formed "The Friendly Society,"..."for the express purpose of assisting each other when in distress by the death of our friends." They paid Adam Leland 30 shillings for the land, opposite the 21 milestone, and laid the ground out in 20 equal lots. Lot one, with an apple tree growing thereon, was for Adam, and Lot two was set aside for the minister so that he would not be obliged to participate in gambling, for the rest of the lots were drawn by ballot. In 1801, the ground was enlarged and the whole enclosed by a stone wall four and one half feet high, with a horse block put opposite near the 21 milestone. The Pine Hill Cemetery Reverend Edmund Dowse delivered the address at the dedication of Pine Hill Cemetery in 1852. The site, comprising ten acres, had been chosen by Sherborn's resident doctor, Oliver Everett, and by Captain Jacob Pratt who did the landscaping. Dr. Everett was a jolly person, full of jokes and stories. It helped the sick just to see him. His practice was extensive and he worked so hard that he died at an early age and was the first to be buried in the new cemetery. At Town Meeting in 1745, it had been voted that "the Selectmen should procure a burying cloath at the town's cost," and in 1783, the "cloath" having doubtless worn out, "the Committee chosen to purchase a burying cloth be directed to purchase one of cotton velvet with the necessary appendages," and in 1808 "to procure a hearse and erect a house to cover same, to be placed on the commons." These old records show us that the Town, rather than the individual, was responsible for
206 Sherborn
such appurtenances of death. This continued to be so even after the Town and Church were separated, for in 1877, the Town voted to purchase runners for the hearse, a necessity in snowy weather. And the Town Report notes on page 15 of 1883, the following expenditures: To Murphy & Leaverns Feather duster for Hearse $4.50 Historian Morse urged the people to preserve memorials of the ancient worthies of the town or to erect new ones. With this purpose in view, Colonel Sanger. in 1857, removed the remains of the first three ministers of the town together with their families from the Central Cemetery to the new Pine Hill and placed an imposing monument upon the plot. Soon after, the remains of the fourth minister as well as his marble headstone were moved to a spot nearby and a granite monument placed next to it by Harvard College, where he had served as president from 1770 to 1773. Upon application of the proprietors, this cemetery was accepted by the Town, as were the other cemeteries, by gift or purchase, and in 1888, the Town assumed control of all ceme-
Cemeteries 207 teries within its bounds. The Selectmen and the Town Clerk chose the "Rules and Regulations for Cemeteries and Burials," which appear in our Town Records. In 1893, the Town initiated waterworks for Pine Hill Cemetery but it was easier voted than done. The Framingham Tribune followed the progress quite closely. On August fourth it reported "nearly $1,000 have been expended on the cemetery well and no water yet." August 11th, "At a special meeting it was voted to appropriate $300 more for the well work." August 18th, triumphantly. "Finally the Pine Hill well diggers have struck water at 446 feet." In 1895. the Cemetery Commission of three under provision of Chapter 264, Acts of 1890, was adopted. The Town Reports have much in them from that time on about the various interest and funds for perpetual care on burial lots, and they mention most of the old families. They voted in 1903, to dispose of the hearse and runners, and three years later set aside $100 to "make the Central burial ground more attractive." In 1912, when the enlargement of Pine Hill Cemetery was under discussion, it was voted to place the proceeds from the sale of lots into a special fund to be known as the Pine Hill Enlargement Fund, to be invested by the Cemetery Commission and the Selectmen. When the need for more area was apparent in 1925, the Town took some Douglas land by eminent domain, and Mr. Norman B. Douglas was paid $1225 out of the Enlargement Fund. Mr. Auringer and the Pauls made gifts of land at this time, too. Only a resident of Sherborn may purchase a plot at Pine Hill Cemetery and each lot is of four-grave size and endowed with perpetual care. If you would mingle with Hopestill Leland and that whole first pioneering generation; or if you prefer to visit those sturdy descendants who followed, tilling patiently the soil of Sherborn and taking time to fight our country's wars; you should come to one of Sherborn's nine burying grounds. There is no hurry or bustle in these still, shadowed cities which exist because our ancestors with dignity and simplicity made provision for that small patch of ground that they meant to finally occupy. The grounds were set aside courageously and generously by those who knew full well that the Puritan Sampler was true. "Ye Was Born to Die."
At the turn of this century, Sherborn had a Town Clerk, Francis Bardwell, who delved into the history of the town and, with historic facts, wrote sketches of customs that would otherwise be lost to us. Here he takes us to a funeral held at "The Bullard House" at 33 North Main Street in 1828, 40 years before Bardwell was born. James Bullard was a large man, his grandson James, born 1813, told me he was over six feet tall and weighed over 200 pounds. The morning of June 30, 1828, was hot, and James, with a hired man, went up the lane to lay up a stone wall, as the cattle were in pasture. He dropped dead, and the frightened hired man rushed back to the house to convey the bad news to the peaceful family. Neighbors were summoned and carried the body to the house on a door as a litter. Young James Bullard, a grandson of 15, was sent to get young Dr. Oliver Everett, who came, surveyed the remains, and pronounced James Bullard dead. Amasa Green, who lived at 54 North Main Street, was the town coffinmaker. It was before undertakers were known, and always, unless in very cold weather, the funeral was on the following day. Amasa went about his profession in a methodical way, so they told me. He drove his horse and wagon into the yard, placed his wooden horses, or trestles, under the trees, and with his measuring stick measured the man for whom Amasa was to make his last habitation. Green, so it was said, always made a coffin that had six sides, not four. Meanwhile, the womenfolk, James' sister Betsy and his daughter Mary (Polly), and other women of the household, prepared the house for the funeral next day, saw to it that the brick oven was heated and elaborate preparations made for the funeral dinner for relatives and old friends. In 1828, the funeral of a well-known man and a respected citizen was a most solemn affair. James Bullard had filled with distinction and integrity many Town offices. One was custodian of the town's supply of powder, bullets and flint, stored in the Powder House on the Bullard farm. It would seem that there was a certain procedure followed at funerals of that period. In the forenoon, relatives and old friends assembled to eulogize the departed, and wait for the 208 Funeral Customs 209 'funeral baked meats' to be served and also to register their guesses as to the contents of the will of the deceased. The will of Col. Samuel Bullard, James' father, had been a wonderful and lengthy document, and disposed minutely of everything owned by the maker. Col. Bullard had made every provision for his widow, where she was to live, how much was to be provided for her support, how much wood she was to burn, and how often she was to have the horse and carriage placed at her disposal. So, also, did he provide for his daughter Betsy (Aunt Betsy), who ended her days in the little north ell later known as 'Aunt Polly's Part.' The funeral dinner was served in the long south parlor, where trestle cables had been set up. It was a solemn meal, and after it was over and the tables removed, the mourners and the neighborhood people began to arrive. The coffin was placed before the fireplace in the north parlor. It was June, and the flowers were in profusion. At the head was placed the Samuel Locke light stand, and upon it a small, roughly decorated bowl filled with the choicer blooms. This was known as the Bullard bowl and dated back to Colonel Samuel's time. In this room sat the family, and they more than filled the room all of Sherborn's oldest families. Friends and neighbors occupied the long south room, the front hall, and overflowed to chairs beneath the trees. There was one church at that time; the minister was Shearjashub Bourne Townsend, and he officiated. It is said that when Rev. Townsend prayed, it was a vivid and minute instruction to the Almighty to matters as Rev. Townsend saw them, and hints as to future procedure. The services finally over, the coffin was borne out by the bearers and placed in a wagon, the bearers on either side. Then, the procession to the cemetery (I think the Plain): first relatives in chaises, and a few of the, then, newfangled family carryalls, and finally those who walked along the dusty road. The last rites having been performed, everybody returned to the house, curious to hear the reading of the will. There were three children Andrew, a cabinetmaker who lived in the house south from James' house; Harry, who inherited the Malt house and home; and Mary (Aunt Polly), who was provided for in the will. After the reading of the will, the relatives and friends lingered, and finally came into the house and were divided into two groups. One group went to the north parlor, the other to the south parlor.
210 Sherborn To those in the north parlor, cakes and pitchers of water were served. In the south room, cakes were also served, but instead of water, two ancient decanters, evidently Amelung manufacture, were filled and refilled, with rum in one and brandy in the other. The group that emptied the decanters were there to follow the aged custom of drinking to the memory of the departed and extolling his many virtues, while floating in to them from the north parlor came the chants of songs, praising water as Adam's ale and God's beverage. It was late afternoon when all had departed and left the two women of the household to put the home in order.
The Land Grants The exploration by the English of the Nipmuck territory, which encompassed all the land west and north of the Charles River, probably began in 1621. By 1643, the area was so well known that the General Court did not hesitate to encourage its settlement by Grants to individuals, and these Grants were multiplied until the entire district was incorporated into towns. Grants conveyed only the rights secured by King James the First's charter, by right of discovery, to the exclusion of other nations or the independent jurisdiction of colonists. Such grants never interfered with the perfect right of the Indians to such lands as they had improved; nor denied their imperfect rights to such as remained in a state of nature. The colonists were required to extinguish by purchase the Indian claims, and the grantees or their representatives, respected this condition of their Grants. Though all Indian deeds were not recorded, enough have been found to justify the belief that they paid the Indian to his full satisfaction for every acre they took, while reserving to him the right to fish and fowl in or upon the ponds or rivers within the tracts of land. There was only one Grant to a Sherborn resident by the General Court, namely 50 acres to Thomas Holbrook. Other grantees received their acreage for services rendered the King or his colonial government, with the intention of reselling to actual settlers. Only a portion of the land comprising the area of the town was at first assigned to the inhabitants, the remainder being reserved for division among others who were expected to settle there. This Common land was granted to those whom the town was desirous of keeping as settlers, and these people "drew a home lot" after satisfying certain requirements. The first of these general Grants by the town was made in 1682. At other specific times, these Common lands were divided among worthy early settlers. The original grantees of land in this area follow (denoted by an *), along with those who bought from them and actually settled the soil which comprises the Town of Sherborn. *R1CHARD PARKER never settled in Sherborn but had a grant of land which he sold to our first settlers. This comprised 535 acres of meadow and upland "lying in the woods on the West side of Charles River, lying between the land of Capt. Robert 211
212 Sherborn Kayne (another who deeded land to our settlers) on the S. side ..by Charles River on the E., and a rocky point now called the Neck, running into the river; and by common woods on the W." On May 8, 1652, in the first transfer to actual settlers, he sold this land to Nicholas Wood, Thomas Holbrook and Andrew Pitcher, all of Dorchester. NICHOLAS WOOD probably had resided here before this date, no doubt with the consent of the grantee, before the negotiations were completed, and had commenced labors upon the land. He is generally conceded to be the first settler of Sherborn and became one of the foremost in the new colony. He erected his home (not standing) near where his fifth child, Mehitable, later built her home (46 Forest Street) when she married Captain Joseph Morse. Mehitable, whose birthday was July 22, 1655, was the first Anglo-American child born in the settlement. *THOMAS HOLBROOK built his first house on his share of the grant near Death's Bridge (220 S. Main). In 1657 he petitioned for the high, rocky point east of Parker's grant, including the Neck mentioned in the deed to the settlers as the easterly boundary of their land, and the Court granted to him, in 1659, the only piece of Sherborn property granted to an actual settler. He then purchased 461/2 acres of the government and, in 1666, built a new dwelling a little north of the first. ANDREW PITCHER was the other who purchased land of Richard Parker but he never settled here. He sold his land in lots or parcels to others. *LT. JOSHUA FISHER of Dedham, received a grant, in 1644, of 300 acres of land bounded on the south by Dedham (afterward Medfield, then Medway, and now Millis). He sold to one of the first settlers, Nicholas Wood, who left in his will, "all those lands, meadow and upland, which I formerly bought of Lt. Fisher, to my son Eleazer." This corresponds to land in the Stannocks bordering Hollis Street and Nason Hill Road. HENRY LAYLAND bought 80 acres of the original Richard Parker Grant from his brother-in-law, Thomas Holbrook, in 1666, but he had been living on it for twelve years. He also purchased 200 acres of the Richard Brown Grant. He signed both petitions to the General Court and was associated with the Selectmen "to grant town lots to those that were known among the inhabitants." He was buried near his home in the Old South Cemetery. In 1847 a large meeting of his descendants was held in a mammoth tent on the Sherborn Plain and among his noted posterity present was
Sherborn Revisited 213 Mrs. Millard Fillmore, whose husband was President of the United States two years later. A granite monument was dedicated to him that day and stands on the north corner of the church common. *RICHARD BROWN, a man of bold, liberal and independent spirit, received a grant of land comprising 200 acres in 1649, which was subsequently sold to Henry Lane of Boston. This property included a meadow, still called "Brown's Meadow," and extended from the westerly line of Parker's Grant, which separated it from the Charles River, almost to the present Holliston line, and formed the nucleus of the great Leland Farm. In 1660, Henry Layland had given his bond to Henry Lane, for this land, but a deed was not forthcoming until 1667, when Secretary Rawson and Governor Danforth made oath to the purchase and payment. *CAPTAIN ROBERT KAYNE of Boston, like Richard Parker, had an extensive grant but did not settle here. In 1657 his executors sold that part of it which was then within our bounds, near Powisset Hill and Bogistow Pond to Benjamin Bullard, George Fairbank, John Hill and Thomas Breck. BENJAMIN BULLARD became one of the foremost settlers, signing both petitions for incorporation. He must have been a man with great tact, for it was he who was chosen to assign seats in the church, when it was completed, to the members in due order of precedence and dignity, a job of no little responsibility. He also was a chief contributor in "extinguishing the Indian claims," a work not completed by the original grantees but left for the settlers, and accomplished here in a most fair fashion. GEORGE FAIRBANK was one of the first five Selectmen chosen to run the business of the new town. His son, Jonathan, was the first physician of Sherborn and was drowned in the Charles River, falling through the ice when returning from Medfield one winter's night. They resided in the stone house north of Bogistow Pond. JOHN HILL was a man of considerable property for he was assessed highest among the proprietors in extinguishing the Indian claims. Besides his purchase of Kayne's executors he had also drawn many lots of public lands. His land lay in Sherborn's southwest area where a road would later be named for one of his descendants, Nason Hill. THOMAS BRECK married one of John Hill's sisters and settled on adjoining
land. Kayne's land was purchased in one piece, about 500 acres, and then divided among the four purchasers, as was the custom, so that each should have suitable portions of
214 Sherborn meadow, upland, arable land and cedar swamp. The cedar was considered of prime importance for making fences. Breck signed both petitions for incorporation and his descendants occupied the land for 200 years. *CAPTAIN JOHN HULL secured a 500-acre Grant which included all of what would become known as Sewell's Meadow and much of the center of town. His other land holdings extended into Rhode Island, where Point Judith was named for his wife. A silversmith and originator of the Pine Tree Shilling, Hull was Mint Master of the Massachusetts Colony when he was only 30 years old and one in every 20 shillings which he minted was his to keep. Also a great merchant of the day, Captain Hull's vessels were plying the waters to the Indies. He became treasurer of Boston and then of the Colony and when his only child, Hannah, married Samuel Sewell, her dowry was her weight in her father's Pine Tree Shillings! SAMUEL SEWELL inherited all of the lands of Captain John Hull as his only son-in-law and in the diary, which he faithfully kept from his days at Harvard until his death 50 years later, are most readable stories of visits to the place they maintained in Sherborn (102 South Main). He rose to become Chief Justice of the Colony but is perhaps remembered most for serving as one of the Judges in the infamous Witch Trials at Salem. His name still clings to the meadow he owned and the brook which meanders through it. In the settlement of his estate his daughter, Mrs. Judith Sewell Cooper, inherited his Sherborn property, and immediately sold one half of it to Richard Sanger and the other half to Captain Joseph Ware by deeds dated January 2, 1735. *SIMON BRADSTREET also received a large grant here but never settled on it and in 1658, sold his 800 acres in the eastern part of Sherborn to Daniel Morse. Most of these original grantees were men of high position who were rewarded by the King for favors received, by these gifts of land in the Colony. Their intention was not to settle on their Grants but to realize a profit on their sale, in most cases. DANIEL MORSE, SR. built his house at or near the site where his family maintained their home until 1902, when the heirs of Leonard T. Morse sold it (177 Farm Road). Morse was evidently a man of rank in the new settlement, chosen as one of the first five Selectmen, and precedence was uniformly yielded to him at all public meetings as long as he lived.
Sherborn Revisited 215 OBADIAH MORSE was one of Daniel Morse, Sr.'s sons. who also was elected as one of the first five Selectmen, and these five prominent men elected him to act as their first Clerk. His intellectual abilities must have been outstanding for he was also appointed to act as schoolmaster in the town. DANIEL MORSE, JR., another son of Daniel Morse, Sr., who, along with his brother Jonathan, was among the fifteen attending the first meeting of the new Town, built his home on part of his father's land, where it is still standing (210 Farm Road). JOHN PERRY, a son-in-law of Daniel Morse, Sr., was assigned a home lot where the entrance now is to the Town Forest on North Main Street. He was another who was present at the first meeting of the Town and later would serve as Selectman, as did his son, Captain Joseph. EDWARD WEST, another son-in-law of Daniel Morse, Sr., was one of five chosen to be a first Selectman and was considered for minister. When another was chosen for this position, he was named, in 1694, as schoolmaster of the town to teach children to read, write and cipher. He was given a large grant of land which would always be known as Edward's Plain (North Main Street from the center of town to Everett Street). THOMAS EAMES had suffered the loss of his wife and some of his children at the hands of the Indian warriors, but had overcome his personal sorrow to become one of the four who represented the Town in the exchange of land with the Natick Indians. He received 200 acres from the town and was also one of the five chosen to act as Selectmen for the first ten-year term. JOSEPH MORSE and his wife, Mehitable Wood Morse, had built a home larger than those of the other settlers (46 Forest Street) on a part of her father's (Nicholas Wood) farm. Here divine service was held for many years, both because of its size and central location, Captain Morse receiving a grant from the Town for this accommodation. Morse, a young man of great ability, was the first signer of Sherborn's second petition for incorporation and probably its trainer, THOMAS SAWIN, whose name bespeaks that he came from a family of millwrights, as he himself was, settled at Course Brook where he drew a home lot of 24 acres, which was readily assigned to him so that he might build our first mill in 1679, when he was only 22. The following year he was able to supply timbers and
216 Sherborn boards for the first meeting house for which he received £53 (about $265). Although he set up a gristmill for the Natick Indians a few years later, he continued to live in Sherborn where his two daughters and son, John, were born. He served as Selectman and then Representative to the General Court for this town in 1714. In later life he did take up his residence in Natick at what is now the Audubon Broadmoor Sanctuary. *EDWARD TYNGE, about 1664, was recommended to be granted 250 acres northeast of Bogistow Brook, situated south of what is now Hollis Street at the Western Avenue end. *JOHN PARKER was granted 150 acres, in 1664, which is now Holliston land. *CAPT. ELEAZER LUSHER was granted 250 acres in 1659, which he sold to Lieutenant Henry Adams, a signer of Sherborn's petition for incorporation, who was massacred by the Indians in his doorway in Medfield. The land was later owned by Col. Samuel Brown of Salem and Judge Sewell and is, in part, the land on which the central village of Holliston is now built. *DEAN WINTHROP, son of Governor John W. Winthrop, received a grant of about 700 acres in 1659, together with Francis Vernon, lying in what is now Holliston. It was purchased by Capt. John Golden and settled by him in 1705, when it was Sherborn land. *REV. JOHN ALLEN of Dedham had 200 acres granted to him, now in the northeast part of Medway, which was originally occupied by Deacon Paul Daniels. *COL. WILLIAM BROWN, in 1662, was granted 500 acres on the south side of the Sudbury River on which stands Ashland village, which was meandered out in running the North line of Sherborn, and afterwards annexed to Hopkinton. *WILLIAM COLBURNE of Boston received 300 acres laid out in 1660, "in the wilderness beyond Medfield," adjoining unto the east side of Nicholas Wood and thence to what is now Farm Bridge. *THOMAS DANFORTH. ESQ., Deputy-Governor, and *RICHARD WAYTE received large grants of land which were in Natick and Framingham and are referred to in many of Sherborn's documents. *FRANCIS VERNON, or VARNUM, received 700 acres adjoining Dean Winthrop's.
Interviews With Descendants
As one roams through Sherborn's wooded lands, up its hills and down to its streams, through its open fields laced with stone walls, and then follows this with a visit to some of the oldest houses with their many fireplaces, adze-formed oak beams and paneling, one is easily drawn into the sixteen and seventeen hundreds' atmosphere as it was in early New England. In much the same way as our modem telescopic cameras focus on and magnify distant objects and people, so does one's mental telescope see clearly our first settlers and their progeny creating this little colony. In Sherborn today, there are descendants of but few of these settlers who serve as a link to those days when, in a way, life was simpler and more stable, and when concern for one's neighbors as a vital part of daily living was more in evidence.
217
218 Sherborn The Mills of the Lelands At the four corners of Mill and Hollis Streets, one comes upon open green hayfields to the immediate left and right, dotted here and there with yellow piles of lumber and rimmed about by distant tree-covered hills that are deep green in summer and red gold in fall. One may hear the hum and zing of a saw. Stepping from his brown-shingled house on the upper corner is James Freeman Leland, lumberman and farmer in his 72nd year. He can look out over the sweet-smelling fertile meadows, over a red-rooster weathervane atop what is left of the ancient barn, can look beyond the simple sign "Hopestill Farm," and, as far as his eye can see, the land with one or two exceptions, is his. To the casual passerby, "Hopestill" may suggest that there is a clever name for a farm with no special significance to the owner or to the Town of Sherborn. But nothing could be further from the truth. Like the land, Hopestill goes back to the beginning of the town and even further to the days when Elizabeth 1, Queen of England and Ireland, held firmly to her golden scepter, waved the American dream into being and then worried about the Pilgrims. Elizabeth may have known this Hopestill Layland (as the name was spelled in those days), born about 1580 into a family well acquainted in Court circles. Dr. John Layland, Antiquary, had written the Coronation pageant for her mother, Anne Boleyn, Queen to Henry VIII. North Leland Street in Dublin may seem a long way from Mill Street, Sherborn, but Hopestill Leland covered the distance in his busy life, becoming perhaps the oldest man ever to settle in New England, at age 75. He crossed the Atlantic with a company of Sir Fernands Gorges to offset the influence of those worrisome Plymouth Pilgrims. Though most of the company returned to England or went on to Virginia, Hopestill remained in Dorchester, then moved to Sherborn, eventually to die here in 1655, He was the first to be buried on the banks of the Charles River, near Thomas Holbrook's farm, in the 'Old South' Cemetery. Hopestill Leland's son, Henry, to whom the 9624 descendants as of 1850, referred as "our primitive ancestor," married Margaret Badcock and dwelt in Sherborn on approximately 500 acres of land, which he distributed among his three sons as follows in a will dated 1680:
Sherborn Revisited 219
Each of Henry's three sons settled, lived and died in Sherborn near their place of birth. Known as prudent, industrious farmers, Eleazer died at age 43, Hopestill II at 74, and Ebenezer at 85. Ebenezer's will leaves, "All his lands and meadows in Sherborn or Holliston or New Sherbourn or elsewhere...to his sons Isaac and Joshua Lealand...provided that they shall take care of my wife, their mother, and shall keep so many cows, winter and summer, as shee shall desire (not exceeding three) and a gentle horse to ride on when she desires it..." Apparently, Joshua and Isaac did provide the gentle horse and kept enough cows (not exceeding three) to inherit the lands and meadows, for it is this land which their descendant James Leland sees when he steps from his front door into the dappled sunlight of his surroundings. An unusual record, that to have held, farmed and occupied a huge, valuable tract of land for 300 years, in a country where mobility has been a way of life and nearness to a large metropolitan city such as Boston invites suburban expansion. There is something special, then, to learn from the Lelands. To be sure, there aren't many Lelands in town in 1974, but seventeen of them went to the American Revolution and in the year 1857, 42 Lelands paid taxes on Polls and Estates. Even before then, they were distinguishing themselves in other parts of the country. Thankful Leland's case is one; she moved to Aurora, New York, where her daughter, Abigail, met and married the Hon. Millard Fillmore. Upon the death of Zachary Taylor, July 9, 1850, this great-granddaughter of Sherborn's own Henry Leland became the First Lady of the United States. The present proprietor of the Leland farm is a modest man, but there is an iron firmness to his flesh that suggests that this
220 Sherborn
member of the Class of 1922, Amherst Agricultural College, can put his great strong hands, so used to running a lumber mill, onto any matter. Like his ancestors, he has served the Town of Sherborn as Selectman, Constable and Assessor, and been Advisory Board Member of the Framingham Trust Company; but his real love is his land and his mill.
No one really knows when the first mill ground its golden kernels into meal or sawed its first log, but Jim Leland's father's Sherborn Revisited 221 father had used oxen to draw logs to it from the woodlots, sawing pine into rough grades of board that went to a box shop. His grandfather had died the year Jim was born, so that as soon as Jim was big enough to put on a harness, he was put to work with the horses, plowing, harrowing, drawing logs.
Perhaps the most call for lumbering and team work in Sherborn came as a result of the 1938 hurricane, when Ira Ward cleaned up about 400,000 feet of pine from the Cabot forest. Jim Leland and his team. Ward Parks and his team, all snaked their way through the woods, because Ira Ward did not want the forest damaged any further than it had been; they managed to clean the woods up by the first of July.
222 Sherborn rod and begonias decorated all the rooms, while Japanese lanterns illumined the grounds during the evening. Mr. and Mrs. Sanford Leland of Winchester, Miss Bertha Freeman of Jamaica Plain, and Mr. and Mrs. Horn of Belmont entertained the company with vocal solos and instrumental music. Conspicuous among the gifts was a handsome silver fruit dish given by the Sherborn Grange, P. of H.' " The following year, Jim's grandfather died. He had been a Sherborn Selectman, a Representative to the General Court from Sherborn in 1867, and Vice President of the Investment Committee of the Holliston Savings Bank, a post which Jim's father continued to hold. The business card of Jim's father read: James H. Leland,
At night, the old house in Jim's childhood was lighted by a single kerosene lamp on the table in the middle of the living room. Jim said, "Father, wearing his felt underboots because of the cold floors in the wintertime, often read the paper which was delivered regularly then, but he would fall asleep in the Morris chair... just the way I do. Sometimes he spoke of a grant, according to my wife, but as far as I'm concerned, I've never seen any evidence of it. Everything of that nature burned with the house in 1939." Fire has plagued the Leland family. Indians burned the first house, and the present house, built in 1939 following another disastrous fire, is the third house to stand on the site. Part of the original house, around 1730, had been incorporated into the great old barn, burned more recently.
Sherborn Revisited 223
224 Sherborn rural place like Sherborn, a gorgeous full moon came up! Sherborn Revisited 225 25’, Children under 12, 15’. Never Mind an April Shower! In 1889, they held a Hurly-Burly Party at Town Hall, complete with Mother Goose Quadrille and the novel 'Humaniphone' Admission 10’. The Unity Club, in the year 1895 presented a 'Winter with Holmes,' with programs scheduled every other week, focusing on different works of the good Cambridge poet and writer. Jim's father was on the Entertainment Committee that year, along with Mrs. Charles Holbrook and Mr. J. F, Allison who helped with the program." 226 Sherborn the redwoods of California. As Charlie said, a 'trip is a trip,' but I guess I'll be glad to get back to Sherborn. Sherborn is home to the Leland family." He rose, "Come tomorrow and I'll show you the mill." I found him out under the tall pines, sawing up lumber in the mill. As one approaches, his faithful old brown dog gets up from his resting position at a discreet, protective distance from Jim, and barks a sharp warning. Not too different, one can imagine, from the early days when the first Lelands were clearing their lands, readying the swamp cedar posts for the meadows. Now Jim Leland looks out over those same newly mown meadows thick with sweet grasses, quietly proud. What inner thoughts he has, he keeps to himself. His feet are planted firmly on Leland land. Times have changed, and the Lelands have changed in many ways as the town itself has changed, but somehow within, there is a core which has not changed an iron grip, you might say, on that cloudlike, intangible thing which, for want of a better term, we call the American Dream. In that dream, 300 years long, the Mills of the Lelands have ground slowly and steadily but exceeding fine; and the end product has been character. Sherborn Revisited 227 The Holbrook Cider Mill Today among the several descendants of our earliest families, some bearing the original family name and others as lineal descendants, there is Burlen Mahn. whose maternal ancestors were the Holbrooks and in whose home he resides at 69 Forest Street. Thomas Holbrook, whose father sailed from "Ye Port of London in the ship Hopewell" in 1635, was the first of that family to come to Sherborn, where he built his house in 1659, on his share of the Parker grant. Then, in 1672, he alone successfully petitioned the Great and General Court for a grant of some 50 acres adjoining his original piece on the north side of the Charles River, thus giving him the unique distinction of being the only settler to receive a direct grant from the Court. Thomas Holbrook's son John married the granddaughter of Nicholas Wood, Silence Wood, who was born in the Bullard Fort during the King Philip War. In 1694 they built their house on land inherited from her father Jonathan, and today a section of it, moved a few yards from its original foundation, forms an ell of the house a descendant built in 1769. It remains today the home of the Mahn family. Over the years, fires have completely destroyed several of our oldest landmark houses, and this was nearly the situation in 1932, when a fire threatened the entire homestead, particularly that part which is the 1694 ell. As Burlen Mahn vividly recollects, the Sherborn pumper ran its hose into the nearby Sewell Brook, but someone forgot to open the nozzle, with the result that the hose burst and was rendered useless. Deke Jackson, the worthy constable and indispensable man in any emergency, being on hand and doing his part, telephoned the Natick Fire Department for hose, but got the curt reply that it had none to spare; whereupon Dana Holbrook, the eldest of the family then living in town, took over the telephone and told the Natick firemen in strong language what they must do instantly. The extra hose was brought over right away. By the time the fire was put out, it had burned down the carriage house "having horsestalls, two carriages and feed bins" and had burned right up to the door of the kitchen of the original ell. Thus the section of the 1694 house was saved for posterity. The genealogical history of the Holbrooks is replete with many forebears who took responsible roles in the formation and devel-
228 Sherborn
Sherborn Revisited 229 opment of Sherborn. Of notable interest is first settler Thomas Holbrook who was one of the signers of both petitions for the incorporation of Sherborn and, in 1685, was one of the six brethren to constitute the First Parish in Sherborn at its formation. As we read of the succeeding generations of the Holbrook men, and learn of their service to their country in time of war, we find five of them in the Continental Army in the American Revolution, three in the Civil War, and four, including Burlen Mahn and his brother, Holbrook, in World War I. In addition, many other Holbrooks served Sherborn in various appointive and elective offices. In business ventures the Holbrook name is associated with the Grist Mill, built nearby the homestead on Sewell Brook, and the renowned Cider Mill which was built by Jonathan Holbrook in 1853. The Grist Mill was torn down prior to 1897, and its dam shortly thereafter. The cider-producing operation became the largest in the country, with much of its product shipped to England. We are pleased to record here that the Holbrook line continues today through the seven grandchildren of Mr. and Mrs. Burlen Mahn. They are Britton Hall and his sister Jan, and the five Duer boys: John, Leland, Fred, Nathan, and Douglas.
The Dearths of Death's Bridge The death of John D'Ethe did not alter any of the reasons for leaving England, and Widow D'ethe boarded the ship "Planter" and embarked for the new world with her four-year-old son, John. When they landed in 1642, their small group traveled inland from the Salem colony and settled among the rolling hills of Topsfield.
230 Sherborn
Sherborn Revisited 231 John (there would be a John in every generation during the next 300 years, even to the thirteenth generation), at the time of his marriage in 1698, settled in the north of town (20 Prospect Street). From this homestead, Deaths of successive generations served as Town Treasurer, Assessor and Selectmen. Then, at the time of the Revolutionary War, Henry Death purchased the farm which one of the first settlers, Thomas Holbrook, had built on the banks of the Charles River. During the Indian Wars, this farm had been spared from destruction by fire, because Holbrook had generously shared the fruit of his orchard with all the Indians. King Philip had pinned his challenging war note on the crude bridge which the settlers and their friends in Medfield had thrown up across the river at the boundary of this property. The bridge would no longer be known as 'the way to Medfield but as Death Bridge, from the name of the family that lived on the hill above it and owned the land on both sides of the way leading to it. In 1855, Charles Austin Death had his surname legally changed to his mother's maiden name of How, and that branch of the family inherited the homestead, but his name is commemorated in the name "Death Bridge" to this day. Other branches of the family would change the spelling of their name to Dearth, but not before they had settled in different parts of town and there was a Death in each of our cemeteries. In 1949, Newman Dearth married Margaret Devitt, and they settled in the South Sherborn of his ancestors in the homestead that her grandparents, Thomas and Catherine Burke, had bought in 1868, when they came from Cambridge (43 Goulding Street). During his college years at Cornell, Dearth had spent holidays in Sherborn, and served as the model for "Doughboy," the heroic statue that Theo Kitson did in bronze for the Town of Hopkinton, at the studio she and her husband. Henry Hudson Kitson, shared on Western Avenue. Before his death, Newman Dearth served on the Historical Committee of the Three Hundredth Anniversary of the settlement of Sherborn.
232 Sherborn The Hildreth Holdings At the time of Incorporation, Sherborn included as part of "the six miles square, not exceeding eight miles in length" much acreage which she retained as 'common land.' From time to time, parcels of this land were granted to those who were considered assets to the community and whom the community desired to re-
tain as settlers. Thus did Ebenezer Badcock have "a home lot assigned him on March 8, 1696, on the West side of the West Sherborn Meadow" where Harold G. Hildreth now resides. Here he built his homestead and was chosen as Selectman in the early 1700s. His son, Ebenezer, married the great-granddaughter of Henry Layland, Senior, and inherited this homestead which remained in the family in direct descent until the middle of the next century. In 1843, William Leland, who was also a direct descendant of the senior Henry Leland, purchased the widow's third of this farm and later the other two thirds, thus keeping the property
Sherborn Revisited 233 still in family ownership, a custom quite common in those times. William had apprenticed in the gun business with his father and had lived in the family home after his marriage (61 North Main Street). Lemuel Leland was the master gunmaker of his time and his son, "Bill Gun," as he was called to distinguish him from his cousin, "Bill Slipper," the shoemaker, was soon renowned in his own right, when he opened his shop on the Badcock Place. William's daughter was born in the old homestead, but by the time his darling Amy came, the family had moved into the house Bill Gun had finished for his family in 1844, with his shop just beyond the shed. He turned more to gunsmithing, because it was hard to keep up with the converting of old flintlocks into tubes and caps, but those guns he did find time to make were in great demand and were sold before they could be put into the shop. Here he did supply shot pouches, powder flasks, powder and shot and caps. Boston firms sent parts of guns in a rough state; black walnut stocks, brass trimmings, and barrels, for him to assemble and customize. His daughter, Amy, who grew up to marry George Washington Fleming, wrote of his bringing the gun barrels into the house in cold weather and placing them near the fire to dry the dressing on them. She also recalled that the yard would often be full of teams of those who had come to pick up work her father had done. Amy's daughter, Mercy Leland Fleming married Irving Hildreth. Their eldest son, Harold G., inherited this acreage granted to his ancestor almost 300 years ago. He was quite young when the mantle of responsibility fell on his shoulders, but today when he climbs down from his tractor and sweeps his arm across the horizon to show what his heritage encompassed, his love of the land shows through as strong as it had in his ancestors.
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Sherborn Revisited 235 across the road after it finished the tower and house and barns. There was no snow on the ground and the fire swept through the hayfields, burning a stack with many tons of hay and the barn that went with the house, which Whitney also owned, opposite the end of Brook Street." The Fiskes of The Stannocks District The Charles River meanders in a southeasterly direction from Sherborn to Watertown. Although the first Fiskes from England settled in Wenham in 1637, the ancestors of the Sherborn Fiskes settled in Watertown in 1642, and from that town Nathaniel Fiske followed the River into Sherborn in 1704. Knowing that many of his ancestors since 1208, were educators and ministers we presume that his immediate forebears came here for religious reasons perhaps a motive for their Motto, in the Coat of Arms, "So to the stars we go for doing as we ought below". The old Fiske neighborhood in Sherborn was a rather large area, running roughly from the
east side of Nason Hill Road where Jonas Fiske had built his home in 1779 (36 Nason Hill Road), on part of the original Hill holding, when he married Mary Hill. Another boundry was Stannox Farm where Jonas' brother John resided and where his daughter Abigail lived after her marriage to Captain Samuel Learned of Revolutionary fame. To the west the area extended to the eastern part of Holliston. Deacon Oliver Fiske lived somewhat north of the neighborhood, having bought
236 Sherborn the homestead, now numbered 83 North Main Street, in 1814, and continued the tannery in operation there. The varied activities of the Fiskes are a matter of public record and they served their country well. Eleven Fiskes fought in the Revolutionary War, two of them from Sherborn and the others from Holliston and Natick. Six of them were officers in the Continental Army and, as such, had a price on their heads. A trip through the cemeteries of Sherborn and Holliston reveal the many services rendered by the Fiskes. Dr. Timothy Fiske was brought up in the Fiske neighborhood. Later in life he lived on the Holliston line but doctored many in Sherborn, as did the husband of Sarah Fiske, Dr. Tapley Wyeth, a well known Sherborn physician. In the middle of the old Fiske neighborhood, quite properly, live the present generation of Fiskes, G. Farrington and his wife, Virginia, carrying on the quiet, good-humored, scholarly tradition which has characterized the family. Fiskes, it seemed, were at home in the sick room, the pulpit, the schoolroom and the General Court to offer counsel, sympathy and advice. G. Farrington Fiske followed several ancestors who served in the Massachusetts General Court, but, of those, he was the only one to serve from Sherborn. From the "Old Red House", which they love and have lived in for many years, Farrington and Virginia have served the Town in several ways and have carried on an active life while raising their family John and George. One of the great sorrows that they have borne, was the long illness and loss of their only daughter Kathy. Farrington has been a School Committee member, Library Trustee, an Advisory Board member and an Assessor. Virginia, too, has found time while carrying on her duties as a Professor at Wellesley College in the Department of Biological Sciences to serve on the Advisory Board, the School Committee and the Town Committee. Commenting on politics, Farrington felt that since he was very much of a novice in the Legislature and though he understood fairly well its rules and procedures, he was not always able to adjust his thinking to the strategy and wiles of some of the Law-makers. He thought Sherborn politics were more straightforward and that differences were settled openly in those days. During his tenure he appreciated the integrity of the many
Sherborn Revisited 237 Town officials with whom he worked. Of the more colorful ones he remembered vividly "Deke" Jackson, our only policeman for many years, and Ira Ward, a sagacious Selectman.
In the early nineteen twenties, the comparatively simple life in rural Sherborn was of special delight to Farrington. He recalls, with some nostalgia, the many activities of the townspeople in the wintertime: the pung rides through the fields, the old-fashioned Church Suppers, Square Dances in the Town Hall and the Valentine Day Dances put on by the Firemen's Association. In those days, too, the men on the snowplows would leisurely take hot coffee and apple pie at many houses on the routes. In the warmer weather there would be countless games of baseball, treasure hunts, swimming, and moonlight walks around Farm Pond. Also there comes graphically to his mind's eye the sight of the farmer's wife delivering eggs on horseback, and the occasion when Ward Parks gathered some menfolk together in the early morning to cut wood for heating the church. As Chairman of the 300th Anniversary Committee. Farrington was deeply involved in all phases of the Committee's work,
238 Sherborn and his considerable contributions and sustaining encouragement have been immeasurably helpful in the writing of the History. Urbane and genial, Farrington Fiske retains the air of a country gentleman that marked the first Sherborn Fiskes. The Tavern Jonathan Whitney came to Sherborn and built his house in 1678 on the spot where Sherborn's famous Tavern would stand and which would incorporate this original building in some part of its rambling area. He had been born in England, in 1634, and the births of his children were recorded in Watertown before his arrival here. His home lot consisted of 30 acres including the Rocky Hill north of his house, and land lying on both sides of the main town road. (41 North Main Street) This home was passed down through generations of his descendants until 1782, when the Honorable Daniel Whitney inherited it. His marriage to pretty Miriam Leland in 1761 had united him to a descendant of one of the first settlers of Sherborn, and in his own right he was the leading citizen of the community. A strong-minded and patriotic citizen, he was early and long in public life, arousing and directing the energies of his fellow men during the Revolutionary struggle. He had been a member of the provincial Congress, and a member of the convention to form the State Constitution. When the adoption of the Federal Constitution was the question, Sherborn sent Daniel Whitney to the convention in Boston in 1788, with instructions which concluded as follows: "And having the fullest confidence in your political wisdom, integrity and patriotism, we cheerfully, on our part, submit the all-important question to your decision." Daniel was one of the majority who voted in favor of this great charter of our freedom. He continued in his service to the town by serving in the General Court for 14 years, as a member of the Senate and repeatedly of the Executive Council. As a magistrate, he was much valued and his death in 1810 brought forth regrets from an extensive acquaintance. His children, with the other many Whitney descendants, preferred their North Sherborn holdings and the homestead was sold in 1824, to Captain Daniel Paul.
Sherborn Revisited 239 Before purchasing the Whitney Homestead in Sherborn, Captain Daniel Paul had been an early master of a vessel in the European trade and is known to have built two seagoing vessels, one of them in Newburyport. He was born in Sanford, Maine, and married Sarah Smith of Needham, from whence he moved his family to Sherborn in 1825, when he was but 37 years of age. His energy continued to manifest itself, for in 1828 he became an agent for the Middlesex Mutual Fire Insurance Co., thus starting one business which his descendants still carry on. Another business was the operation of a tavern, and he received his license as an "Inn-holder" from the County Commissioners to continue the flourishing business he had acquired with the property.
With all his business ventures, he also found time to act as Tax Collector for the town and as Keeper of the Powder House. The big barn, which stood at an angle to the corner of the rearmost ell, included extensive horse stalls and hay storage space. It had great high double doors with glass panes above to accommodate the stagecoach which passed before the house on the 'Country Rode.' The coach was kept here and readied for the next day's journey, for one of the Whitney boys had been the driver for some years. It had been quite suitable that his father ran a fine tavern where the guests could spend the night, and it was expedient that he continue using this as a stop-over station. Daniel incorporated a store in the first floor of the south ell, which was an added convenience, for it contained not only grocery and food supplies but also dry goods, shoes and hardware. The
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Sherborn Revisited 241 guests were immediately aware of the store, for the room clerk's desk stood just inside the entrance. The second floor of this ell was a large ballroom used in entertaining the guests of the inn, then called "The Sheldon Inn." When Captain Daniel died in 1835, this large property was left to his son, Edwin Ruthven, who was only 17 years old. He proved equal to the task, for though he closed the store at the time of his marriage five years later, he found time to conduct a cider vinegar business in New York and to maintain six teams of horses, each assigned to a specific employee. He also had the responsibility of maintaining a good part of the town roads. After the death of Edwin Paul and his wife Esther, there was a great upheaval caused by the renovation of the house when partitions and stairways were moved, bathrooms added, roofs raised and fireplaces opened. This resulted in four comfortable suites of rooms with private baths as well as some extra rooms and baths, all because elderly Paul aunts were now accommodating what New England calls 'paying guests.' Since 1946, Hunting Lane Farm has been the private homestead of the Paul family. That was the year that Lesley C. Paul acquired and continued the family insurance business which his daughter, Mrs. Gerald W. DeLue and her husband operate today. Lesley, like his father, was involved in Town affairs, for many years serving as a Trustee of Sawin Academy and on numerous committees. His son, John, serves Sherborn as Chief of the Police Department. Lesley C. Paul's widow, Erma, resides in this elegant 27-room home on the Plain, one of Sherborn's remaining former Taverns. The Whitneys, descendants of the Tavern's first owner, who populated the north of town with their many farms and beautiful homes no longer appear on the Assessors lists, but a granddaughter of Daniel L. Whitney, Miss Margaret McGill, recalls a visit to his great farm on Western Avenue at the end of the last century. "I always looked forward to my visits at Grandma and Grandpa Whitney's," said Margaret McGill, putting aside the yellowed parchment deed to the Whitney property, dated 1679, and signed by the Indian Awasamog "My mother, Nora Whitney, married a handsome Scot from Dover, named McGill, and I was born in the old Leland house on Western Avenue (number 255). which in those days had already undergone changes. Originally, the house had two chimneys and a ballroom on the top floor, but my grandfather said that it had had three different roofs
242 Sherborn that he knew about. Grandfather's farm was across the road and extended toward Framingham. He bought the old schoolhouse which stood opposite Pleasant Street, using it for storage near his windmill. Uncle John Whitney, who was deaf, lived around the corner on Whitney Street. My Whitney aunts. Sally and Amanda, lived opposite the small red cottage on Whitney Street, where Miss Mary and I lived in later years but which is now torn down. In those days, it was said that a person could walk for three miles without ever stepping off Whitney land. "Grandfather Daniel L. Whitney, born in 1845, was not tall but rather a robust man, and it was his second wife who was the Grandmother Whitney I knew, most kind to everyone and just what a little girl would want a grandmother to be. She had been C. Lillis Leland and had taught in the one-room schoolhouse near her family's home on Mill Street. My cousin, James Freeman Leland, and I were christened together by Dr. Edward Everett Hale. When we were growing up, Jim would come into the kitchen on his way to school or while delivering milk, and perch himself on the woodbox. "Sunday meant church, and Jim pumped the organ endlessly. We all liked Rev. Porter, which was a good thing, because in horse-and-buggy days children stayed through the service after Sunday school and for the social after that. Even though we were three miles from the center of Sherborn, there was usually company on Sunday afternoon, or we took rides with friends and might even go as far as the Ironmaster's in Saugus. If the grandparents were entertaining, the young people might play croquet in the summer but Grandpa didn't believe it was really right to play games on the Sabbath. "As a small child I found it a highlight to watch Grandfather shave before church. This ritual always took place in the living room because the big windows there offered good light. He had a huge leather strap on which he sharpened his straight razor, before he began the ticklish business of trimming his mustache and shaving close to his sideburns. "One Christmas, we were snowed in following a fierce storm which blew a drift right over the kitchen door. The hired men and Grandpa soon made a tunnel through the snow, for we were expecting Harry Whitney and his family to come up by train from Beverly for the holidays. When the train pulled into East Holliston, Grandpa had managed to be there with a heavy team and wagon, and to bring the two trunks and shivering children back to the warmth and Yuletide cheer of the Whitney Farmhouse. "Farmers had to break the roads out after a snow storm. One bad winter Uncle Frank and his wife, Lizzie, died almost at the same time. The roads were not broken out and after the services were held in the house a double runner pung took the coffin with a buffalo robe over it down to the cemetery because the hearse couldn't go through.
Sherborn Revisited 243 "When Aunt Amanda Whitney had her ninetieth birthday, it was a great occasion in Sherborn, written up in the papers. So many people were coming that my mother made a cake so huge she was lucky to fit it in the oven of the big black stove. When we carried it into the room, the heat from the 90 candles was terrific, but Aunt Amanda was so pleased. "In 1924, Grandpa Whitney's farmhouse and all the buildings were consumed in a fire in sub-zero weather, and all that was saved from the blaze, which was over in an hour, were the silver spoons which Grandma had stuffed in her pocket in passing the sideboard, and her desk which was passed through the front window at the height of the fire, "However, Grandpa Whitney found it easier to get to his Assessors' Meeting from the house on the corner of Linden Lane which they moved to after the fire. He had served 31 years on that board at the time of his death." The Farm of The Grouts The typical farm life in Sherborn during the late 1800's and early 1900's, when Sherborn was but a small rural community, becomes a vivid picture when one talks with the few "old-timers" who are descendants of the early settlers. As one listens to accounts of those days related by James Leland, Harold Hildreth, and Francis Grout one becomes a bit envious of many aspects of their experiences. Like their contemporaries, the Grouts worked the land, took care of horses and cows, felled trees, helped in maintaining the gravel roads, and fought the house and woods fires. They were self reliant, and depended on their own resources. To illustrate, making their own soap and waterproofing the family shoes by rubbing in melted lamb fat were customary practices. Captain John Grout came to this country from Wales and settled in Watertown in 1642. It is interesting to note that ancestors of a number of other Sherborn families came first to Watertown at about that time, and then eventually journeyed to Sherborn, where they established permanent homes. But in the case of the Grout family, the first ancestor to live in Sherborn moved here in 1760, where he established a farm. From that home went Nathan and Silas Grout to join the Continental Army and to fight at Bunker Hill (42 Washington Street). The original house, built in 1755, was torn down in 1850, but
Sherborn Revisited 245 the small house adjacent to it and once a cider mill, still stands. Eventually, Francis' father built a Victorian-style house on the same site, which was not far from the homestead (the Stannox Farm), the birthplace of Francis' mother, Nellie Daniels. Across the street from the old homestead, Nathan Grout and Albert Ware established, long ago, a cranberry bog of some 15 acres, which was developed into a business that flourished in the Grout family for three generations. Francis recalls that one man could rake one to two barrels of cranberries a day. The cost of one barrel load was calculated at $1.00, but fetched in the market $28. At least 100 barrels were harvested each year and were shipped throughout New England. While stored in Sherborn, they were piled in both the first and second floors of the Sanger house, which was down the road a piece. Some say Sherborn berries were superior to Cape Cod cranberries, because "they tasted better and did not shrink in cooking." Boyhood days meant farm chores, of course, but still there was time, in season, for skating, sledding and hunting rabbits. Swimming and skating were mostly at Farm Pond, and sledding was down the hill from the schoolhouse, along past the Grout homestead, and on up the hill as far as possible going west. It was fun to go rabbit hunting and shooting at any old target with Bob Leland. More than 30 years later, a favorite target tree was cut down and found imbedded in it were the lead bullets shot by those two young hunters. Playing baseball was the never-ending summer sport, with Sherborn's team often rated as champions of the small towns' league-champs because of players such as Rollins, Newman, Dowse, Lane, Bothfeld, Auringer, Clark, Whitney and others. The baseball field was then located on McCarthy's field in South Sherborn. Especially in the wintertime, the Town Hall was a busy place, serving as it did for a variety of meetings, plays and dances. Its main room was lighted by a kerosene chandelier, and along the edge of the stage were six fixed kerosene lamps. During one show, a single lamp was knocked over but the spreading fire was quickly extinguished. As would be expected, dances in the Town Hall were popular for the young and the old, although they generally were held only after some one had commented "about time to have another dance." A charge of $1.00 per couple covered expenses, including even
246 Sherborn the musicians. The Virginia reel, polkas, waltzes, and, of course, the square dances were the favorites. Several years after graduating from Sawin Academy in 1915, Francis established a dairy farm with seven cows. "There were three horses, too." As the milk route developed, the herd was gradually increased to 40 cows, until 1953, when he sold his milk business to a Framingham farm. The local newspaper of 1949, recounts the story of the Grout's horse "Bucky" which fell (one leg) through the bam floor and "it could have easily broken a leg but he was sensible and lay still for half an hour, while Mr. Grout and Mr. Tucy rigged ropes and pulleys, and finally hoisted him up." Such was the way of life in rural Sherborn some years before its population burgeoned, and the faster pace of living overtook it.
The Wares of South Sherborn Captain Joseph Ware, who was born in Wrentham in 1682, married the granddaughter of Nicholas Wood and through this marriage succeeded to the inheritance of the east half of the ancient Wood farm in South Sherborn. He was an enterprising and much respected citizen and as a young man served as Comet in an expedition against the Indians. He and Captain Joseph Morse formed Sherborn's first business partnership when they built a grist mill on Sewell's Brook at Goulding Street in 1710. The partnership was soon dissolved, however, because Ware's slave, Duty, being much the best miller, captured all the trade for his master and Morse sold out. When Chief Justice Sewell died and his Sherborn properties, inherited from Mintmaster John Hull, were sold, Captain Joseph Ware bought the southeast half of the old Hull farm. Judge Sewell had written in his famous diary of spending holidays here, and it was into this house that Captain Ware moved and spent the rest of his days. (102 South Main Street). His faithful slave, whose gravestone would stand next to his master's in the South Cemetery, planted a magnificent elm in front of the house where the land sloped to Sewell's meadow. The Captain's son, John, inherited, and was an industrious and useful man and the father of a large and prosperous family who built many homes all through the southern part of the town.
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Among his sons was Henry who, as a minister, was elected Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard. His election was the subject of exciting discussions on account of the liberality of his theological views, and was the signal for the development of causes which eventually divided the Congregational ecclesiastical system of New England, and established a new denomination, the result defining the lines that now separate the Unitarians from the orthodox Congregationalists. His illustrious sons extended the line of distinction in three different fields; Henry, Jr., as a model preacher, Dr. John as one of the foremost of physicians and ablest of medical professors in Boston, and William as the author of the well-wrought narratives, Zenobia, Probus, and Julian. A cousin, Asher Ware, was a distinguished lawyer and jurist whose father had been one of the bravest of Revolutionary soldiers. He returned from that War with only one arm but became an able surveyor. When Eleazer inherited the waterpower rights where his greatgrandfather, Joseph Ware, had built the town's first gristmill on Sewell's Brook, he raised his family of five in the old homestead near the mill (43 Goulding Street). Here the wheelwright, Vorestus Ware, was born in 1822. He married Mary Rosaline Butler, whose
248 Sherborn father was also a wheelwright. Squire Jeremiah Butler built his home in 1818, on what would be called Butler Street in his honor and served the town in many capacities. He was also a Justice and often held court in his front room as the occasion demanded. Vorestus Ware's youngest daughter, Emily, graduated from Bridgewater State College and returned to Sherborn to teach at the Farm District School. J. Francis Allison was the new headmaster at Sawin Academy, having graduated from Dartmouth College, and it was not long before the old Butler Homestead was the scene of their wedding in 1895. Of their three children, Theodore, Margaret and Robert Ware Allison. it was Robert who returned to make this his residence after his marriage in Philadelphia to Mary Fahringer. He became involved in town affairs as his father before him and served on many committees and as President of the Historical Society. Mary and Robert Ware Allison's son, James, was the fifth generation of Butlers to reside in the Squire Butler House and the eighth generation of Wares to roam over Sewell's Meadow when he visited the site of Captain Joseph Ware's mill. The Resident Doctors Sherborn had a resident physician shortly after the town was incorporated. However, it was some time before the settlers and their friends in Medfield had completed the bridge over the Charles River and the town's first doctor was drowned when he fell through the ice returning from a call in Medfield one winter's night. Dr. Jonathan Fairbanks, who lived in the stone house on the banks of Boggestow Pond, had been a Selectman for seven years, as well as ministering to the ills of all the settlement. Doctors Eleazer Hill, Jonathan Tay, Samuel Locke, Tapley Wyeth and William Sweetser are among those listed as Sherborn doctors, though others served for unrecorded periods of time. Dr. Oliver Everett was called in 1825, and served until his untimely death in 1852. A doctor was 'called' by the committee appointed to choose one, in much the same way that a minister was chosen, and he usually served an area larger than the town itself. Doctor Albert Henry Blanchard situated in Sherborn as Town Physician in 1852, the last to be so designated. He had "previously
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enjoyed the best opportunities for acquiring a knowledge of his profession in Harvard University, and in Massachusetts General Hospital, where he served as House Physician, witnessing every form of disease, and learning the most approved modes of treatment." After his marriage, Doctor Blanchard bought a home and enlarged it to provide a commodious office and waiting room, which was always filled when 'visiting hours' came around. He left Sherborn during the Civil War to serve two years as Surgeon of the Third Massachusetts Cavalry, but returned to round out 30 years on the School Committee, and to complete his work as one of the first trustees of the library.
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Medical expenses of the 1860s Before the War, Dr, Blanchard had transcribed the ancient records of Sherborn in his legible hand, under authority of an act of the Legislature, and the results of his two years of labor are in the record books at the Town Offices. His knowledge of the town's history was extensive, and in 1890 he composed a scholarly treatise which was published in the History of Middlesex County. This and an earlier work have been compiled in this publication of 1974 to present the story of the town from its incorporation through its first 200 years. However, Albert H. Blanchard was first a physician, and when a call came for his services, neither weather nor distance was a consideration. His great beard and overhanging eyebrows were oft encrusted with ice when he reached home on a winter's night. The third generation of Blanchards resides in the homestead at 27 Washington Street, and Joseph K. Blanchard has the volumes of his grandfather's diaries. His entries remind one that the use of ether and the practice of dentistry, as we know it, are comparatively new and that the life of a doctor was difficult at best:
Sherborn Revisited 251
The Flagg Homestead Thomas Flagg (or Flegg) came from Scratby in the Hundred of East Flegg, Norfolk Co., England, with Richard Carver, in the ship "Rose" or the "John and Dorothy." He settled in Watertown in 1641 and was a Selectman there for eleven years. His wife, Mary, was born in 1619. They had eleven children. He died in 1698. The present Flagg family in Sherborn descended from the oldest son, Lt. Gersham Flagg. His great-grandson, Gersham, of Clinton, Maine, was married to Abigail Bigelow. Some time after Gersham's death in 1802, Abigail married Rev. Elijah Brown, minister of the First Church of Sherborn, who owned the present Flagg house. At his death in 1816, the house was inherited by Jacob Bigelow Flagg (1795-1854), a son of Abigail. The house has been occupied by five generations of the Flagg family since that date. It is interesting to note that in four of the five generations there has been a Jacob Bigelow Flagg in residence at the Flagg Homestead at 22 Washington Street.
Sherborn Revisited 253 The Sanger Famly The Sangers were among the prominent families in Sherborn's history. Richard and his brother Nathaniel arrived in 1689 and established a blacksmithing business, which they had learned from their father, Richard, in Watertown. After passing the customary year of probation, young Richard was approved as a good and wholesome inhabitant, and presented, by a vote of the proprietors, with 20 acres of land and town rights. He was an exemplary member of society and to him was committed the sacred charge of taking care of the Meeting House, to which his was the nearest dwelling. He died in 1731, leaving a sizable estate and a son, Richard, to carry on at the blacksmith shop. This Richard had other ideas, however, and he moved for a short time to Boston, where he established a large and lucrative business. The climate disagreeing with his lady, he returned to Sherborn to trade extensively in merchandise and real estate, including land speculations in Maine, and amassed a large fortune. Tradition has it that he and his slave captured the last moose sighted in Sherborn in 1745. He and Reverend Daniel Baker and Captain Joseph Ware were the three men in colonial Sherborn who were known to keep slaves. Two of Richard's sons became noteworthy men of Sherborn. Asa, who farmed, was shingling his saltbox (70 Washington Street) when the boom of the cannon was brought on the northeast breeze from the Battle of Bunker Hill. His brother Samuel inherited the ancient Sanger house and kept a store and tavern, but being a religious man, he kept the Sabbath strictly, and on that day "his bar was locked and a key of gold could not open it though his other rooms were open and fires free during the interim of divine service." This tavern once stood next to One North Main Street and here it was that George Washington stopped on his last trip through New England, to see the patriotic citizen, Samuel Sanger, who had been eminently serviceable during the great conflicts for our liberties. Two small cups and saucers used for Washington's refreshment are in possession of the descendants of the Sangers, the Thomas Homers.
254 Sherborn Col. Calvin Sanger of the next generation was the most distinguished of the family. A lawyer, he served the town in various ways for more than 40 years as well as being Representative in the General Court and the Senate for most of that time. A philanthropist, he founded and funded the Sherborn Widows' and Orphans' Society. A most successful businessman, he purchased a township in Maine in 1800, and helped Sherborn young men to establish there and work in his saw and grist mill; this town was later incorporated as Sangerville. He also, with other Sherborn associates including Hopestill Leland, originated the first cotton manufactory in Framingham. A most sociable man, he had Ebenezer Mann build a fine house for him (8 Washington Street) with many ells, which was a resort for a great deal of company, so stylish and grand that people went to Meeting just to see them come in and fill a number of pews. A most political man, he opened Sherborn's first Post Office in the building next to his home, which housed his law office and store, because he had received an appointment to serve in Sherborn under our first Postmaster General, Benjamin Franklin. The Colonel's brother, Joseph, inherited their father's tavern and his daughter, Maria Sanger, married Oliver Everett of Dedham, who had come at the express invitation of a committee appointed by the Town, "From among several recommended to our attention, we have with perfect unanimity decided to request you, if your circumstances will permit and our situation may appear sufficiently promising, to come and reside with us as a physician." Dr. Oliver Everett and his bride Maria contracted with Bowen Adams to build their house on some of her family's land with a separate entrance for his office (1 North Main Street), During the 25 years he served as Sherborn's only doctor where "such is the salubrity of the situation and the good habits of the people, that one is amply sufficient," he was held in high esteem by his townsmen. Worn out by professional labors, he died at a young age and his death was universally and deeply lamented. The family names of Dr. Everett and his wife, Maria Sanger, no longer appear in the listing of Sherborn inhabitants for lack of male descendants, but the town showed the esteem in which these families were held by naming a street after each of them. The doctor's great-granddaughter, Mrs. Thomas Homer, lives in the homestead and has continued the family tradition of service to the town by being, for many years, a member of the Board of the Widows' and Orphans' Society founded by her ancestor.
Sherborn Revisited 255 The Dowses of Dowse's Corner Lawrence Dowse, baptized in Lincolnshire in 1613, settled in Boston about 1640, and his great-grandson, Eleazer, born in Charlestown in 1728, lived at the foot of Breed's Hill (of the Battle of Bunker Hill fame). Here his 13 children were born. On the sixteenth of June in 1775, sensing ominous movements among the British troups, Eleazer loaded his family and possessions, including a setting hen, onto a flat boat and proceeded up the Charles River to Watertown. Their house was destroyed by fire the next day. Henry Morse of Natick, who transported them to relatives in Holliston, was so impressed by daughter Eunice's devotion to her setting hen that he later married her. Eleazer was a leather dresser, a trade which was carried on by his four surviving sons, who settled in Sherborn, on what is now Everett Street. The higher land was used for dwelling houses and farming, and the boggy lowland for the digging of pits in which to soak hides. Eleazer owned two houses, not now standing. One was used in part in 28 Everett Street, and the other much photographed as the picturesque, 'Old Woodcock House,' until the mid-1900s. Two of Eleazer's sons married Sherborn girls and settled; Eleazer, Jr. at 30 North Main and Joseph at 100 North Main. The latter house was only a small cottage with a large ell. The original front was replaced by the present house in the 1840s. It was this Joseph who gave his name to Dowse's Corner. An ammunition garrison stood in the area, and it was on guard duty here that Joe Dowse and many other Sherborn young men served their new country during the Revolution. After the War, he set out the giant buttonwoods and ash trees still standing opposite his house. The youngest of Eleazer's children, Thomas, born in 1772, was lame as a result of a fall from an apple tree when he was eight years old. He, also, was a leather dresser but his interests ran to fine leathers, then to bookbinding and, finally, just to books. He moved to Cambridgeport, never married, and amassed a small fortune which he left to honor and further education. Like most men of his day, he had little formal schooling and when Harvard conferred upon him an honorary LLD, he quipped that it stood for "Literary Leather Dresser." He left money for a high school in Sherborn, as well as bequests to Massachusetts General Hospital, the Museum of Fine Arts and the Asylum for Indigent Women.
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He endowed a series of lectures in the City of Cambridge which continues to this day, and his fine personal library was willed to the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston. In the next generation, three of Joseph's sons settled at Dowse's Corner; Benjamin at 91 North Main, Joseph at 106 North Main and Nathaniel at his father's house at 100 North Main. In the next generation, Benjamin's son, William Chamberlain, built 13 Lake Street, Joseph's son Charles settled next door to his father at 112 North Main, and Joseph across the way at 3 Coolidge Street. Nathaniel's son, Henry Nathaniel, built next to his father at 106 North Main and the youngest son, Charles Herbert, inherited from his father and lived at 100 North Main until his death in 1937. His son, Charles Arthur, Sr., built at 1 Lake Street, where his widow still lives. This is eight houses around the intersections of Lake, Coolidge and North Main Streets built by members of the family. The three brothers, Benjamin, Joseph and Nathaniel, grandsons of Eleazer, carried on the leather business, later branching out into whip making and shoe manufacturing. All three had whip shops where 20-foot long stagecoach whips were made entirely by hand. In 1859, Nat built a three-story building between Coolidge and Main Streets, where he operated a sizable shoe industry. The advent of United Shoe Machinery Corporation drove hundreds
Sherborn Revisited 257 of these small shoe shops out of business. Not one of Sherborn's survived. Two other houses built for members of the family are situated at 2 North Main Street and 25 Farm Road. Rev. Edmund Dowse, the eldest son of Benjamin, lived in the latter from the time of his marriage in 1838 until his death in 1905. His son. W. B. H. Dowse, built the former for his widowed sister, Deborah Perry Dowse Coolidge, and on their deaths, it was willed to Pilgrim Church for a parsonage. Rev. Edmund Dowse graduated from Amherst in 1836, and then studied theology with Dr. Jacob Ide of Medway. In October, 1838, he was ordained as minister of the newly formed Evangelical Society, later Pilgrim Church, a pastorate he held for 67 years. During his prime, he was one of the most famous preachers in the area, renowned for his wedding ceremonies, with couples coming from out of state to be married by Mr. Dowse. He was a Chaplain in the Civil War, a member of the Massachusetts Senate, Chairman of the Sherborn School Committee for 67 years and Chaplain of the State Senate for 25. Services of celebration were held to honor his 25 years, 40, 50 and finally 60 years as pastor of Pilgrim Church, daily ministering to his flock. In 1886, his Alma Mater awarded him an honorary D. D. degree. Upon his death, extra trains had to be added through Sherborn to bring the many mourners to his funeral. William Bradford Homer Dowse, the Rev. Edmund's only son, was born in 1852. He attended West Newton Classical High School. No record remains as to how he reached Newton but his cousins, Marion and Charlie (Nathaniel's children) walked to Natick and took the train each day to Newton where they "took classes at the Alien Schools." One had to be hardy to get an education in the 1860s! Graduating from Harvard in 1874, he went on to Harvard Law School, later opened offices in Boston and New York, specializing in patent law. In 1898, he was "obliged to abandon his professional career to devote full time to his own manufacturing interests," primarily Reed and Barton and United Carr Fastener, and others where he served as Director, both here and abroad. In 1914, he gave the Dowse Library to Sherborn in honor of his parents, Rev. Edmund and Elizabeth Bowditch Dowse. Governor Calvin Coolidge appointed him as his personal representative to the Tercentenary celebration of the Pilgrims' departure from England and Holland, where he was received by Queen Wilhelmina. Another of Bradford Dowse's gifts to Sherborn, is the Cyrus Dal-
258 Sherborn. lin statue "Memory," honoring the town's native sons who fought in all wars through World War I. After the closing of the shoe shops, Nathaniel's son Charles Herbert, operated a substantial market garden business. He trucked all of his produce to Natick by horse-drawn wagon for many years, but by 1919, automobile touring had become so popular he opened one of the first roadside stands, still carried on by his grandson, Charles Arthur, Jr. As Charles Herbert's wife was of the Holbrook cider family, the presses at 100 North Main Street, now flowing with sweet cider, continue another family tradition. Charles Herbert's sisters, Mary and Martha, graduated from Bridgewater Normal School during the Civil War, but Marion, perhaps as a result of her years of walking to Natick to take the train, was not considered strong enough to go away to school. Instead, she became a teacher of sewing and crafts at the Westboro Reform School, later the Lyman School. Of the three whip-making brothers, Joseph's last grandson, Robert, died in the Spanish War. Benjamin's eldest grandson, Lewis, homesteaded after the Civil War in Nebraska and his daughter, Eliza, was the first white child born in Custer County. Lewis' youngest brother, Aaron, and his wife Nellie, were in the first class graduated from Sawin Academy and Dowse High School, and their son, Edmund C., resided at 106 North Main Street until his recent death. A great-grandson of whip-maker Nathaniel, Charles Arthur, Jr., lives in the family house at 100 North Main Street with his four sons. Since Eleazer came to Sherborn, there has been hardly a year when the Dowse name has not appeared on lists of Town officers. Rev. Edmund set the record with 67 years as Chairman of the School Committee. Joseph, of 3 Coolidge Street, lived into his 100th year and served in many town offices. Charles Arthur, Sr., while President of the Natick Five Cents Savings Bank, held various offices for 60 years. Aaron, while fully engaged in journalism and editorial associations, devoted his time to public service for Sherborn and the State, serving as Representative to the Massachusetts Legislature and as a Selectman and Assessor for many years. His last appearance as a public speaker was at the dedication of St. Theresa's Catholic Chapel. His son, Edmund Coolidge, was a member of Sherborn's Advisory Committee for 22 years, and Town Accountant nearly as long. Charles Arthur, Jr., and his wife are both active at the present, as is his sister, Mrs. Robert Buntin; and their mother, now
Sherborn Revisited 259 over 90 years, has served the town in many volunteer jobs and has been an invaluable help in making preparations for Sherborn's Tercentenary. Many times the Dowse men did not take the popular view but always held firm to their own convictions. Aaron favored Town water and was against annexation. C. Arthur, Sr., was the leader of those opposing him in both cases. They were an independent and hardy lot. Charles Herbert would relate at length stories of his predecessors, who had lived into their 90's, and then would chuckle to his grand-children, "No need to tell about the ones' who died young."
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