The sanctuary, formerly the farm of Edward Dwyer, statesman Daniel Webster and the William Thomas family of Marshfield, the first English landowner to live on the sanctuary land, was purchased by Mass Audubon in 1984 thanks to the volunteer efforts of the Committee for the Preservation of Dwyer Farm for the People of Marshfield.
The sanctuary contains 507 acres (2.1 km2) of mixed cultural grasslands, red maple swamps, a five-tiered wet panne, Webster Pond and a section of the Green Harbor River.
The majority of the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary is a polder, land reclaimed from water by the installation of a dike near the mouth of the Green Harbor River in 1872.
The wet panne is a man-made wetland designed to hold five tiers of water levels in order to attract a variety of birds.
The Mass Audubon South Shore Sanctuaries staff runs regular nature programming at the site year-round.
As a young man, Edward Dwyer, a resident of Weymouth, Massachusetts, had excelled at early farming attempts, purchasing a pig for $3 at 12 years old in 1914.
By the time he earned his high school diploma he boasted a small herd, five of his own milking cows.
By September 1980 a growing army of conservation-minded citizens calling themselves the Committee to Preserve the Dwyer Farm for the People of Marshfield, joined her.
“The farm includes Red Maple swamps, dry hay fields, moist meadows, and protected backwaters and muddy river edges.
Funds continued to trickle in, as Dywer, now 80 years old, held off developers, with the hope of seeing his farm remain forever as open space.
On October 29, 1982, the committee released the stunning news that an anonymous donor had pledged $100,000 in support, and that Mass Audubon would undertake a study of Dwyer Farm's wildlife and plant populations.
I have felt strongly for a long time there was not a sufficient portion of open land in the southern part of town.
Although setbacks and delays postponed the official sale for a few months, in that year of 1984 the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary came into existence, named for an earlier owner of the land, and an important figure in American history.
The farmhouse, barns and silo have all been torn down by the sanctuary and the only farm operation is the annual mowing of fields to produce construction hay.
And, because the sanctuary is one of the last remaining managed cultural grasslands in Massachusetts, species that rely on such habitats breed there in the spring and summer, most notably bobolinks.
Ducks, geese, herons, egrets and a wide variety of shorebirds visit the wet panne, while several species of birds of prey, most notably red-tailed hawks and northern harriers, feed on the small rodents that breed in the grasslands.