Sherborn, Massachusetts

History

Members of the Whitney family first occupied this part of Shelborn in the mid 1700s. The first Whitney to own the land was James Whitney, a great-great-grandson of Jonathan Whitney, a town founder who settled Sherborn in 1679. In the mid-1800s, Isaac Whitney operated two quarries east and west of the farm.

By the mid-19th century, Sherborn was a small farming town dotted with dairy farms and apple orchards. Local cottage industries included cider-making, smithing guns, blacksmithing, making willow furniture, milling lumber, and making cloth and leather goods.

An 1856 map of Middlesex County showed that the Whitney Farm had been passed along to brothers Warren and James R. Whitney. By 1880, they also owned the house, two barns (one of which is most likely the current existing barn), three storehouses, and a secondary 'railroad' dwelling. They had six cows, two horses and six swine. Possibly they grew corn and other crops and continued the family quarry business. Relatives of the Whitney family built additional clusters of homes and farms, so that during this period of Sherborn history, much of the town was related by birth or marriage.  [continue]

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