In Memoriam Doug Cregar

Saturday, Sept. 25, 2021, was a beautiful, cool, sunny day, and the Historical Society put on “A Common History Day” with an all-out effort by the board and several volunteers. It was a bittersweet experience, as we were all missing Doug Cregar, our society president whose idea this event had been, but who was not in attendance because of his hospitalization. When we heard the next day that Doug had died Sunday morning, we were devastated, but it was as though he had held on to see us through the event. Now “A Common History Day” remains in our memories as a tribute to the inspiration and commitment of our dear friend Doug.

Doug grew up in Harvard, and he had a wealth of information about the town’s history. He loved sharing stories of people and places he had known as a kid or heard stories about from his dad. Many of those involved the Fire Department, of which his father, Royal, was a very active volunteer for many years. Doug was intrigued by the less well known lore of Harvard—the Revolutionary soldier buried in a lone grave at the top of Poor Farm Road or the farmhand of Mr. Stone, who was found dead, most likely murdered. He had facts and tidbits at his fingertips, and he was constantly searching the society archives for things he might not already know.

During the early days of COVID, Doug put together a collection of photos for the HHS website that showed town residents from the old days, standing on their front porches or in driveways, apart from one another, faces unsmiling. Doug joked that folks in Harvard knew how to keep “socially distanced” long before they were asked to do so.

Doug did extensive programming for the society. It was his idea to have a cemetery tour of the graves of Harvard soldiers and a nurse who had served in the Civil War and to have living- history characters recreate them and speak about their service and stories of the war. Last spring the society hosted another cemetery tour of Harvard’s founding fathers and other people important to town history. For both of these programs and others Doug did all the research almost single handedly.

In his love of Harvard and its history, Doug wanted to do so much more. It was his vision to continue to expand the information on the society website, to create a banner for a society table at the flea market that would read, “Have a history question? Ask us.” We pointed out to him that we hoped he realized that the “us” meant him. Our wish is that he realized how much he had already contributed.

Doug was many things to different people. To us who worked with him at the Historical Society, he was an inspiration and a model of joyful commitment to a purpose. He will remain in our memories as a courageous and passionate young man who was physically limited but intellectually and emotionally unbounded.