War Memorial – Sherborn, MA
The small town of Sherborn sits quietly beside my hometown of Natick and carries a depth of history that reaches back to the very beginnings of colonial Massachusetts. Settled in the 1670s, and incorporated in 1674, Sherborn developed as a farming community shaped by Puritan roots, and winding country roads.
A visit into Sherborn brings you face-to-face with one of the town’s most meaningful tributes to collective sacrifice: The Sherborn War Memorial that is paces near the historic center.
The memorial was gifted to the town in 1924 by Willian Bradford Home Dowse, a successful lawyer and philanthropist who was born in Sherborn and who had already donated the Dowse Memorial Library in 1914. His father, Rev. Edmund Dowse, has served with the Christian Commission in the Civil War, tending to wounded Union soldiers, and that personal connection to service helped inspire his own contribution to the town’s collective memory.
Dowse engaged Cyrus Edwin Dalllin, one of America’s most accomplished sculptors of the early twentieth century, to create the central statue. Dallin designed an eight-foot- tall bronze figure titled “Memory;”. Memory is a female figure standing in contemplative posture, holding a World War I era helmet encircled by a laurel wreath. The laurel wreath is an ancient symbol of victory and honor.
On either side of the central figure are bronze plaques that list the names of Sherborn residents who died in defense of their country. This included men who served in the Civil War, World War I and beyond and among the sixteen Civil War casualties are two Sherborn men who fought with the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first African American unit resided in the North.
The primary inscription on the memorial reads: “In Memory of the men of Sherborn who gave their lives in defense of their country.” Willian Dowse expressed his hope that the monument would “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 peril”.
This memorial is powerful not only for the names it records but for it stands as a visible legacy of honor, sacrifice, and community memorial.
