SHERBURNE – This is the story of Sherburne Public Library, how it was built in 1910, how it has weathered 99 years as Sherburne’s library, and how we’ll be honoring the building in its one hundredth summer of operation.

Late in the 19th century, New York State passed laws that formally separated community library collections from school buildings. Sherburne’s growing collection of public reading needed a new home. The local banker’s daughters, Carrie E. Pratt and Grace Pratt Newton, along with Grace’s husband, physician Homer G. Newton and many of their friends and neighbors, created our present library as a memorial to Carrie and Grace’s parents, Joshua and Anna R. Pratt. The brass plaque commemorating their gift, made by the Rome Bronze Co., is bolted to the north wall upstairs, above the public computer printer.

The building opened on Monday, April 12, 1911 with what the April 17 edition of The Sherburne News reported as a gala occasion for Sherburne. A committee appointed from the Ladies’ Village Improvement Society and Library trustees, including Charles A. Fuller, W. S. Sanford, Frank M. Bullis, Carrie E. Pratt, Edward H. O’Connor, and Reverend W. A. Trow assisted in receiving those present. Over 200 people attended the library’s first party, and 103 books were taken out. That was a record number of books checked out in 1911, and it’s still a good day’s total in 2011.