Harvard MA Town and School Info

When you stand upon Prospect Hill and see the mountain vista from Wachusett to Monadnock, you know you are not in Kansas anymore. Harvard is a haven of beauty and serenity that beckons and enchants. Louisa May Alcott once lived in Harvard, in the short-lived Transcendentalist colony at Fruitlands.

 

Restored by wealthy Bostonian Clara Endicott Sears, Fruitlands Museum is a gem, open seasonally and covering over 200 acres overlooking the Nashua River. There are wonderful museum buildings exhibiting Indian artifacts, primitive and pastoral paintings, Shaker wooden art and furniture, and the farm house where the Alcott’s and their Utopian minded friends lived for less than one year. There is also a restaurant, gift shop, exhibit building and trails to explore.

 

Apple orchards are everywhere in Harvard. There is hardly a section of the town that doesn’t have some acreage devoted to the growing of apples, either as a commercial or home-grown pursuit.

 

The focal point of the town of Harvard is its quintessential New England town common surrounded by town hall, churches, antique homes and the newly opened General Store. Having been a dry town from the beginning, the General Store is one of two locations in town that now trades in spirits.

 

Pinnacle Road is the location of Harvard University's extraterrestrial astronomical observatory. Despite decades of searching, no life outside of our planet has been spotted from there, yet.  

 

Because there is only limited town water and no public sewerage, Harvard zoning regulations require large building lots, which, along with town land conservation efforts, has kept development to a slower pace. Town senior citizens enjoy a huge shingled cottage as their senior center in which to have activities. Harvard school students score well in standardized testing, ranking among the highest in the state. 

 

A spirit of volunteerism permeates the town government committees and recreation programs abound. Everyone attends the Apple Blossom Festival and the very large Columbus Day Flea Market. The annual 4^th of July fireworks and parade is the town’s largest social event.....although gathering for Town Meeting commands the attention of many townsfolk as well.

 

Harvard's nearly 6,000 residents have three weekly newspapers to peruse. They have easy access to commuter roads leading to Worcester, Lowell, New Hampshire and Boston.