SHARON, Massachusetts
Located 22 miles midway between Boston and Providence, Sharon has easy access to both cities via MBTA commuter trains, and to New York City and Washington, D.C., via Amtrak trains at nearby Route 128 station.
Its population of 18,000--32 percent are children under 19, 56 percent are adults 25-64 years, and 10 percent are seniors over 65--lives mostly in single-family houses ranging from relatively modest ranches to luxury properties. Many town residents have second and third-generation family roots in Sharon, but the town is also notable for its diversity and openness to newcomers.
An Interfaith Clergy Council and an “Affirming Diversity” group foster cooperative understanding among several varieties of Christian and Jewish congregations, an Islamic mosque, and a Unitarian church.
The Sharon School Department oversees a high school, a middle school, a regional vocational school, and three elementary schools, including an Alternative School at East Elementary School, all of which are committed to excellence in educating students. Sharon High School sends 96% of its graduating seniors on to institutions of higher learning.
“A nice place to live because it’s naturally beautiful,” says a welcome sign in Post Office Square, and Sharon lives up to this motto.
“Lake Massapoag--the treasure of Sharon for its fun, beauty, and peacefulness,” writes a student. “The Lake is about 400 acres of water. When the sun sets, beautiful, vibrant colors reflect off the Lake.”
Lake Massapoag is known for its concerts, fireworks, fishing, and good swimming on Memorial Beach. From the 1800s until the 1940s, Sharon was a summer resort to which people would come to stay at inns and hotels to enjoy the clean air and the Lake.
The Town proudly holds the 2,250-acre Massachusetts Audubon Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary, and has 60% of Borderland State Park comprising 1,260 acres within its borders, as well as the Warner, Massapoag Brook, and King Philip’s Rock nature trails. In addition, the Town has been successful in preserving an additional 1,500 acres of its area of 24 square miles as public conservation land, totaling more than 5,000 acres of protected open space in Sharon.
Sharon was established as the 2nd Precinct of Stoughton in 1740. It was incorporated as the Town of Stoughtonham in 1765 and named Sharon in 1783. Native Americans hunted and fished in the area for hundreds of years before British settlers came in 1637.
During the American Revolution, the townspeople--mostly farmers and craftsmen--made cannonballs for the Continental Army. Among the old homes surviving since those times are the houses of the patriots Job Swift and Deborah Sampson Gannett.
Beauty and diversity are the key words for Sharon, an attractive community among its neighbors Canton, Norwood, Walpole, Foxboro, Stoughton, Mansfield, and Easton. |
