The Wareham Free Library started above a hat shop on Main Street 124 years ago.

That's according to Priscilla Porter, president of the Friends of the Wareham Free Library, who delivered a presentation to the Wareham Historical Society Monday on the history of the library in town, which spanned across a number of buildings over the years since 1891.

It was then that Anna Amory, a summer resident of Wareham and a trustee of the Boston Public Library, donated a $500 collection of books for the purpose of starting a library in town.

Prior to that, people were able to check out books from small collections that were kept in general stores or taverns, according to Porter.

After the Wareham Free Library was incorporated in 1891, Amory became the first president and the library was moved to the Redman Hall on Main Street. Then in 1915, after the death of George Oakes Tobey Jr., his mother, Blanche, had a library building constructed in memory of her son.

The land was given by Ms. Horace Tobey and the ceiling and fireplace in the reading room were gifts of Alice Tobey Jones, according to Porter.

The library then opened up at 75 High St. on Sept. 28, 1916 and  served as the town's library for decades. Porter said that in the 1930s, the Library was open every day from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. and after a dinner break from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. She said the salary for librarians back then was $100 a year.

In 1988, the Library received a grant to build the town's first town-owned public library. The new building at 59 Marion Road, which is where the Library currently resides, opened in 1991.

In 2005 Spinney Memorial Inc., the non-profit group taking care of Spinney Memorial on Onset Avenue, donated the building to the Friends of the Wareham Free Library to be a branch of the library. The building had been a library until the 1940s and had been a longtime meeting place for Girl Scouts after that.

The Friends raised $700,000 to renovate the building and opened up the Spinney branch in July 2012.

"When Spinney opened, there were kids [in Onset] who had never even been to a library before," Porter said.

The Spinney branch closed on July 1 last year due to budget cuts, but Porter is confident Spinney will be reopened this coming July 1. There is about $30,000 in funds from the Friends that can only be used for Spinney.

The Friends had acquired the building in 2005 with the caveat that they bring the idea of town ownership of the building to Town Meeting in 2012. While the town has owned the building for the last two years, it was maintained and operated by the Friends.