Sherborn
Located in the Middlesex County, the bedroom town of Sherborn was settled in 1652 and incorporated in 1674. Over the course of the town’s history there have been a number of notable figures such as engineer, inventor and member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives Dan Itse, and former lead singer of Dispatch and frontman for State Radio Chad Urmston. Bordering Sherborn are the residential communities of Natick, Framingham, Ashland, Mills, Holliston, and Medfield.
Similar to much of early America, the land that Sherborn soon came to populate originally belonged to the local Native American population and under the name of Boggestow. During the seventeenth century, the first wave of English settlers bought land in Boggestow and yet lived in the nearby town of Medfield. It was not until 1674 that Boggestow was deemed big enough to become its own town and at which point it was then incorporated and renamed Sherborn. Gradually, Sherborn came into its own as it developed its own government, established a Meeting House, and formed a town militia over a course of twenty years past King Phillip’s War in 1675.
Throughout an initial time period that lasted from the seventeenth to nineteenth century, Sherborn remained a small, self-sufficient, and independent farming community. At times Sherborn did experience some industrial activity, but not to the extent as some of its neighbors. Though early into the nineteenth century, small cottage industries did begin to emerge and in the form of gun, shoe, basket, and tool production. On the more agricultural side, Sherborn reaped in a fair amount of profit through its cranberry crops as well as by additional farming such as with dairy farms. Sherborn also went through a boom in its apple cider production as one of its mills went on to be known as the one of the most well-established cider mills in the world by the 1890s. Moving along into the twentieth century, Sherborn faced a number of increases such as with a rise in dairy and poultry production, a high number of wealthy families moving in, and in post- World War II, the Sherborn population grew substantially, which led to a reduction in rural family farming plots and a switch into suburban developments. As of today, a bit over 50% of Sherborn’s land remains open, though it’s becoming difficult to maintain with current housing demands. Entering into the twenty-first century, more expansions took place, which included a number of improvements to the downtown area with a new fire department and a state park.
Sherborn has a variety of key landmarks, particularly in its wealth of historic buildings and nearby outdoor spaces. Many of the homes built in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century are still visible today. The National Register of Historic Districts lists seventy-seven Sherborn houses, the old Town Center, and a section of North Main Street as historically important. Similarly, Sherborn is fortunate in its proximity to a variety of outdoor sites such as with the Mass Audubon’s Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary, Rocky Narrows Reservation, and the Medfield Charles River Saint Reservation. Sherborn has a highly ranked public school system that it shares with Dover. The town shares two elementary schools: Chickering Elementary and Pine Hill Elementary, as well as the Dover-Sherborn Middle and High School. Sherborn can be reached by way of Routes 16 and 27.
