The Beginnings of the WFPL

The Beginnings of the WFPL: How Wayland’s Library Came into Existence

Joseph M. Weisberg

Prelude

The earliest libraries in Wayland took two forms that were familiar throughout New England: religious books held at the local church, and a private social library that was only accessible to residents who were able to afford membership fees. Other libraries, including a tax-supported set of books for the public schools, would take root in Wayland by the time the town voted to establish a free public library in 1848.

The history of libraries in Wayland began in the colonial period. In 1731, Judge Samuel Sewall donated four volumes by the English Puritan Richard Baxter that bore the inscription, “For the use of the Church and Congregation in the East Precinct of the Town of Sudbury now under the care of the Rev. Mr. Cook—Boston July 19, 1731.”¹ 

Private citizens began organizing libraries in town after the American Revolution. The East Sudbury Social Library was organized in 1796. Members of the East Sudbury Social Library paid four dollars to join the organization and another twenty-five cents annually. Although this arrangement may seem strange to contemporary library patrons, the East Sudbury Social Library was just one of more than five hundred similar organizations chartered in New England between 1790 and 1815. In contrast, borrowers did not have to pay to use the East Sudbury Charitable Library, which local minister John Burt Wight established some time after he came to Wayland in 1815. Although it was not publicly funded, the Charitable Library may have been the first library that was free and openly accessible to the residents of Wayland. The WFPL was not even the first taxpayer-funded library in the town. In the early 1840s, the town took advantage of a law passed by the General Assembly of Massachusetts that provided funds for the purchase of a school library as long as the town matched the amount allocated by the state. These collections have been referred to as both the “Common School Libraries” and the “Wayland School District Libraries.” 

These three libraries—the East Sudbury Social Library, East Sudbury Charitable Library, and Wayland School District Libraries—would eventually donate their collections to the Wayland Town Library.²  In 1848, an anonymous donor offered the town five hundred dollars towards a public library on the condition that its residents could raise an equal sum. Considering Wayland residents’ long familiarity with the benefits of libraries, there was little controversy over the decision to accept. 

Origin Story: Establishing a Foundation

The WFPL was founded due to the efforts of three important parties: Judge Edward Mellen of Wayland, President Rev. Dr. Francis Wayland of Brown University, and the residents of Wayland themselves. Town tradition holds that the idea of a free public library in Wayland dates to an informal conversation between President Wayland and Judge Mellen on Brown’s commencement day in 1847. President Wayland suggested that he would honor the town that bore his name by donating five hundred dollars for the establishment of a free public library, but upon consultation with Judge Mellen, he made the offer with the condition that the town raise an equal amount of money. According to local minister Jared Heard, rumors of the offer—but not the identity of the benefactor—were circulating by the fall.³  In November, at Judge Mellen’s suggestion, the town created a committee to explore “the subject of a room for a library” even though a library had not been officially established.⁴ 

The defining moment in the founding of the WFPL came in January of 1848. On January 17, Judge Mellen informed his fellow townspeople:

_{I am authorized to say to you that if you will within thirty days from the tenth day of January 1848 raise by subscription or otherwise the sum of $500 for the purchase of a Town Library, a ‘friend of the Town of Wayland’ will add to it the same sum of $500.⁵}

It only took a few days for the town to mobilize. The library archives preserve a manuscript dated January 22, 1848 that lists the names and amounts donated by each resident of Wayland. Historians of Wayland have disagreed about the exact amount raised by the town, but there is no doubt that the town reached the decisive threshold of five hundred dollars.⁶  

On March 6, the town voted to accept the sum of one thousand dollars for the establishment of a library. At the same meeting, Judge Mellen revealed the identity of the donor. We can only imagine how the residents might have felt when they discovered it was none other than the town’s namesake! Dr. Wayland was respectfully honored when those present at the meeting unanimously rose, removed their hats, and asked Judge Mellen to thank Dr. Wayland on their behalf. 

Yet, it would take another twenty-nine months for the Wayland Town Library to lend its first book. In the meantime, two major issues had to be resolved. First, the library needed a physical location in the town. Second, and more significantly, the town needed to resolve legal obstacles that prevented it from levying a tax for uses related to a public library. 

Finding a Home 

The process of finding a home for the newly-established library was rather tumultuous. The town made its first moves relatively quickly, appointing a committee to oversee the erection of a suitable structure in May of 1848. Town meeting minutes suggest the process moved smoothly through the New Year. By the end of a town meeting on January 8, the town had contracted for the construction of a library building and received offers from two locals to help defray costs related to the new institution. 

However, the situation drastically changed during the following year. Town meeting records claim that the committee that had been responsible for overseeing the construction and lease of a library building “had not attended” their duty and that the contractor withdrew his contract, but retrospective accounts from people familiar with the library’s formative period tell a more colorful tale.⁷  They recall that a building had been erected but was deemed unsuitable for the library and rejected by the committee. As a result, the Town of Wayland was no closer to finding a home for its library and opening to the public than it had been when it first voted to establish a town library almost two years before. 

At this point, the residents who had reached into their own pockets to fund the library became impatient with the delays. In March of 1850, the town took the first steps towards providing the WFPL its first home when it voted to renovate the front two rooms in the “Town House.”⁸  One sign of the growing impatience with the delays is the fact that the town authorized the library committee to pay for the repairs on the town’s credit rather than wait to appropriate funds. According to Jared Heard, the library room was ready for its new function by June, and the WFPL placed its first order for books at the end of the month. The WFPL finally opened its doors to the reading public on August 7, 1850.⁹ 

Establishing a Legacy: The Library Law of 1851

A second issue emerged as the town struggled to find a home for its library: Judge Edward Mellen and the rest of the Library Committee questioned whether a town had a right to tax its residents for a public library or anything related to it. The library opened before this issue was fully resolved. Nonetheless, the question of taxation for library purposes had lasting effects on the trajectory of the free public library movement in Massachusetts, cementing the status of the WFPL as a trailblazer. 

Reverend John B. Wight, the former minister who had founded the East Sudbury Charitable Library, once again played a pivotal role in ensuring that the public had free access to information. By 1851, Wight had become Wayland’s representative in the Massachusetts General Court. That winter, he introduced a bill authorizing any city or town in the state to establish a public library and to appropriate limited amounts of public funds for the establishment and maintenance of the library. The bill passed unanimously in both chambers of the General Court and was subsequently signed by the governor in May. Only New Hampshire had a similar law, making Massachusetts the second state in the country to authorize the establishment of free public libraries supported by taxpayers. 

Wight offered his colleagues in the General Court five reasons to pass the legislation. His second reason is perhaps the most notable. He argued that public libraries would “supply the whole people with ample sources of important practical information” and criticized the inequitable distribution of information through private social libraries that were common at the time.¹⁰  Wight was among the first to recognize that social libraries limited access to information to those wealthy enough to pay membership dues and took steps to create a more equitable system. Wight, like many other activists of the period, likely did not want to provide the unfettered access to printed materials. In the same speech, he included “diminishing the circulation of low and immoral publications” in a list of ways public libraries could support moral reform movements.¹¹  Nonetheless, he played a pivotal role in making free access to information a hallmark of civic life in Massachusetts. 

The bill streamlined the process required for towns to establish their own libraries without requesting approval from the General Court. The new law—which the governor signed on May 24, 1851—had an immediate impact. If we look at when neighboring towns established their own libraries, we can grasp the impact of the 1851 Library Law. At least four of the six towns that border Wayland founded public libraries in the 1850s.¹²  Although other factors likely influenced their decisions to start free public libraries, these towns almost certainly benefited from the provisions of the Library Law that authorized towns to establish free public libraries without engaging in lengthy correspondence with the General Court or worrying about legal challenges from dissenting citizens. Wayland had already thought through these possible complications and codified the solutions into state law so that other towns could simply follow suit.

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Footnotes
^{1  Quoted in Helen Fitch Emery, The Puritan Village Evolves: A History of Wayland, Massachusetts (Canaan, NH: Wayland Historical Commission by Phoenix Publishing, 1981), 42. Efforts to locate the Sewall volumes in time for the one hundred seventy-fifth anniversary of the library have been unsuccessful. However, three of the four volumes were in the library when Helen Fitch Emery conducted her research. The town now known as Wayland was a part of Sudbury until 1780, when the towns split to form Sudbury and East Sudbury. In 1835, East Sudbury took the name Wayland, apparently in honor of President Francis Wayland of Brown University. For a brief introduction to the town’s general history, see this article by the Wayland Historical Society.  
2  It is historically accurate to refer to the library from this period as the Wayland Town Library. Article 1 of the original library regulations stated, “The Library shall be known by the name of the ‘Wayland Town Library.’” The current name of the “Wayland Free Public Library” seems to have emerged later and does not seem to have been permanently fixed. For example, Proceedings at the Dedication of the Town Hall, Wayland (1878) refers to the “Wayland Free Public Library,” but supplemental catalogs from the 1920 and 1921 use the term “Wayland Public Library.” Subsequent supplements bear the title “Wayland Free Public Library.” Further research may reveal whether the library formally changed its name at some point.
3  Heard wrote one of the most valuable sources on the foundation of the WFPL, a pamphlet entitled Origins of the Free Library System in Massachusetts that was printed in 1860. Heard’s account relied on information furnished by individuals who were involved in the founding of the library. Some of the materials he accessed have been lost to the passage of time. As a result, some of the details in his account cannot be confirmed by other historical evidence but have become entrenched in town and library lore.
4  Town Meeting Minutes, Vol. 2, 8 November 1847. Digital Commonwealth. The WFPL Archives contain a typescript document of the town meeting minutes related to the formative period of the library. Readers searching for more information about how the WFPL arrived at its first location should consult this document.
5  Edward Mellen to Citizens of the Town of Wayland, 17 January 1848 in Beginnings of the Wayland Library. Unpublished. WFPL Archives.
6  For example, Rev. Jared Heard claimed that the town raised five hundred thirty-four dollars, but the Proceedings at the Dedication of the Town Hall, Wayland states the town contributed five hundred fifty-three dollars and ninety cents towards its library.
7  Town Meeting Minutes, Vol. 2, 21 January 1850.
8  This building is known to some locals as Collins Market and is still standing only a few yards away from the current library location.
9  Almost every chronicler of the history of the WFPL provides this date, but researchers at the WFPL have not been able to locate corroborating evidence that the library opened precisely on August 7, 1850 nor have they found evidence that suggests the library first opened on a different date. In the absence of clear evidence, we have elected to follow town tradition and cite August 7 as the library’s grand opening date.
10  John Burt Wight, “Our Common School System, No. XV.” Common School Journal 13, no. 17 (September 1851): 260. A copy of this publication is available in the Library – Miscellaneous collection at WFPL.
11  Wight, “Our Common School,” 261.
12  The four towns are Framingham, Natick, Weston, and Concord. Dates are sourced from their respective websites with the exception of Framingham. For Framingham, see JH Temple, History of Framingham, Massachusetts. Early Known as Danforth’s Farms, 1640-1880, 379.}

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Bibliography

An Act to Authorize Cities and Towns to Establish and Maintain Public Libraries. 1851 Mass. Acts chap. 305, pp. 804-805.https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.a0001873314

Beginnings of the Wayland Library. Unpublished. WFPL Archives. 

Emery, Helen Fitch. The Puritan Village Evolves: A History of Wayland, Massachusetts. Canaan, NH: Wayland Historical Commission, 1981.

Heard, Jared. Origin of the Free Public Library System of Massachusetts. Clinton, MA: Saturday Courant, 1860. 

Proceedings at the Dedication of the Town Hall, Wayland, December 24, 1878: With Brief Historical Sketches of Public Buildings and Libraries. Boston: Rockwell & Churchill, 1879.

Shera, Jesse H. Foundations of the Public Library: The Origins of the Public Library Movement in New England, 1629-1855. [Hamden, CT]: Shoe String, 1965 [org. 1948].

Wayland Library History – Miscellaneous [collection]. Unpublished. WFPL Archives. 

Wayland Historical Commission. “Wayland Town House / Collins Market.” Form B – Building. Recorded October 2012. Last accessed 20 February 2023. https://www.wayland.ma.us/sites/g/files/vyhlif9231/f/uploads/wayland_town_house_collins_market.pdf

Wayland Town Meeting Minutes. Vol. 2, 1817-1853. Digital Commonwealth. https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/bc386z701

Wight, John Burt. “Our Common School System, No. XV.” Common School Journal 13, no. 17 (September 1851): 257-264.