This former library was built in 1917 and served the town of Wareham, Massachusetts, until 1991 when a newly constructed library was opened. It is now used as a community center. It is located across the street from Tobey Hospital.
The following history is from the
Wareham Free Library:
In 1915, on the death of George Oakes Tobey, Jr., his mother, Blanche Waterman Tobey, offered to construct a library building in memory of her son.
The offer was accepted and the Makepeace property was sold. The land for the new building was given by Mrs. Horace Tobey. The ceiling and fireplace in the reading room were a gift of Mrs. Alice Tobey Jones.
The Tudor style building was completed and presented to the Wareham Free Library Corporation on September 28, 1916. The building belonged to the Wareham Free Library as long as it continued to be used as a public library.
In 1971, the Board of Trustees saw the need to refurbish the library building. They were successful in obtaining revenue sharing funds for this purpose and the building was completely refurbished and renovated in 1974. Electrical compact shelving was installed in the stack room as an effort to provide space for expanding what was an extremely poor collection. Circulation tripled and then quadrupled; and the Trustees were made acutely aware of the community’s desire for good library service. The basement’s meeting room was redone as a children’s room and more compact shelving was added to the stack room.At that point, there was nothing more that could be done. All the space was used.
In 1988, the Wareham Free Library applied to and received a grant from the Massachusetts Public Library Construction Program to build Wareham’s first town-owned public library building.
On May 6, 1991 the library opened its doors to the public, at 59 Marion Road, in the first town-owned library building in its history.
From the
Wareham Week Sep 23, 2011:
The estate of Alice Tobey Jones, who inherited it from her father, George Oakes Tobey, was valued at approximately $3 million. She gave $1 million to humane societies (Bide-a-Wee Home of N.Y. and the M.S.P.C.A.). The Tobey family owned extensive lands in Wareham, including the land the high school and ball field stood on. Alice's brother, George Oakes Tobey, Jr. died suddenly in 1915, and their mother built the first town library (on High Street) at a cost of $50,000 in his memory. George, Jr. was only 36 years old when he died, but he had graduated from Harvard and served as a selectman of Wareham for several years.