The Sibley House

Just a short distance from the center of Westborough stands the Sibley House, today the home and museum of the Westborough Historical Society. From the street it appears to be a handsome nineteenth-century New England home, but its history connects several very different chapters of Westborough’s past.

The house was built in 1844 by William Sibley, a blacksmith and wheelwright. Soon afterward, William married Jane Caroline Gibson of Hopkinton, and together they raised five children here. Behind the house stood the workshop where Sibley practiced the trades that would eventually make his name part of Westborough’s industrial history.

The Civil War temporarily took William away from both his family and his work. He joined Westborough’s Company K of the 13th Massachusetts Infantry and fought at Antietam on September 17, 1862. He was wounded during the battle, one of the bloodiest days in American history.

But while William was away fighting, something was happening inside this house as well. Jane Sibley and other local women gathered in the parlor to make bandages and mittens for the U.S. Sanitary Commission, which provided supplies and assistance to Union soldiers. I find that detail particularly interesting because it means the Civil War story of the Sibley House was not limited to the soldier who left it. The house itself became part of the home-front war effort

After the war, William returned to Westborough and resumed his work. He and his brother Frank became successful sleigh manufacturers, making and repairing sleighs at the blacksmithing business behind the house. At the height of their production, the brothers were reportedly turning out as many as 300 sleighs a year.

They were part of a much larger Westborough industry that has largely disappeared from memory. During the late nineteenth century, as many as nine sleigh manufacturers operated in town. At the industry’s peak during the 1870s and early 1880s, Westborough manufacturers reportedly produced as many as 4,500 sleighs annually. The sleigh atop Westborough Town Hall’s weathervane still recalls an industry that was once an important part of the local economy.

Eventually the Sibley family’s home acquired an entirely new purpose. The Westborough Historical Society had been established in 1889 to collect and preserve the history of the community. In 1990, more than a century after the Society’s founding and nearly 150 years after William Sibley built the house, the organization purchased the property for its permanent home.