Harvard Historical SocietyDiscover Your Town
Historical Places
The Nashua River Valley was the home territory of the Nashaway indigenous people. The first colonial building in the area now called Harvard was in 1667-72 when John Prescott built a grist mill on Nonacoicus, or Bowers Brook, at Old Mill Road.
The town of Harvard was incorporated in 1732 from land formerly belonging to Lancaster, Groton, and Stow.
A tour of the historic places in Harvard
The Common
Map
The original town common was much larger than it is today. The current bounds of the town Common were set by 1830, comprising around only nine acres and the burial ground. By the end of the 19th century, the Common was a bustling commercial center located along important routes of the day, with inns, a general store, retail stores, churches, a post office and library. Today the town Common is a Historic District valued for its beauty and history.
The Unitarian Church
The Congregational Church
Store and School
Wetherbees Temperance Tavern
Bromfield school, now the new library
Hapgood building, 1888 library and post office, now Fivesparks Cultural center
Still River
Map
Still River is a village located on the south west side of the town of Harvard. Noted for its views across the Nashua River valley to Mount Wachusett, Still River is home to the Harvard Historical Society, the Oxbow National Wildlife refuge, and St Benedict’s Abbey. Major Simon Willard, an original settler whose large family included nine grandsons, held a major portion of the land in Still River. It was once known for its large dairy farms.
204 Still River Road, built in 1798
Covered Railroad Bridge
Shaker Village
Map
Harvard’s history includes many experiments with alternative lifestyles, beginning with Shadrach Ireland in the northeast corner of town. He fled to Harvard to establish his own religious community, proclaiming his immortality. When he was proved mortal, his Square House was passed on to Mother Ann Lee, whose group of Shakers established a small village that occupied the area from the 1790s to 1919. Now private homes, the Shaker Village Historic District preserves the aura of the Shaker settlement.
Oldest and Youngest Shakers
South Shaker Stone barn, now a ruin.
More about the barn...
Fruitlands
Map
In 1910 Clara Endicott Sears, a wealthy and well educated woman, built a summer home on the summit of Prospect Hill. Her vast acreage included the now abandoned farmhouse to which Bronson Alcott had brought his family, including 10-year-old Louisa May, from Concord in 1843 to establish a Utopian community. The experiment lasted only seven months. In admiration for what Alcott had tried to do, Miss Sears opened the farmhouse as a museum in 1914. She went on to create three more museum on the property with its magnificent view of the Nashua River Valley.
The Alcott farmhouse
Shaker house
Bare Hill Pond
Map
Still the place to relax.
Once upon a time, people sold chunks of cut ice.
Dicksons Landing
Sheep Island
