Center School (#1). (Courtesy of the Harvard Historical Society)

If you were to ask a 10-year-old Harvard child today what school he or she goes to, you would most likely get one answer: Harvard Elementary School. If you were to have asked the same question at different times over the last 275 years, you would have received many different responses: the room in Mrs. Turner’s house; the meetinghouse; Schoolhouse #6, or #2, or #9; the Harvard School Building; a Forest Service camp; the Brown Building; Bromfield; the Maxant building. Education in the town of Harvard was slow to get going, the priority being religious matters. During the nineteenth century, a school system of districts dominated, despite repeated proposals for change. The twentieth century saw a centralized system, with numerous transformations to school buildings on the present site of Harvard Elementary School.

Education in the early years of the town was marked by indecision and inaction. Harvard had been divided into four quarters, and it was decided that each district should have its own schoolhouse. But no action was taken to construct these buildings, and it appears that children were schooled in the meetinghouse or at private homes in the quarters. One schoolmaster was hired to educate all of the town’s children. Finally, in 1740, after pressure from state authorities, the town agreed to build schools, and eventually schoolhouses were erected in the four districts: Oak Hill, Old Mill, Still River, and East Bare Hill. There was also a schoolhouse in the center of town, just north of the burying ground. In 1754 the part of town known as Shabikin (now Devens) formed a district of its own. Following the Revolutionary War, Harvard’s population grew and the six schools became overcrowded. Two new districts were added: West Bare Hill and North Still River. The Shakers were granted their petition for their own school, thus making nine schoolhouses in the town by 1790, each of which was referred to by its number and district. The Center School (#1), built in 1851 to replace an earlier building on the same site, was the largest of the schoolhouses, with an upper and a lower level for children of different ages.

The schoolhouses were made of wood and were usually one room. Mrs. E. A. Houghton Gale describes the children as having wooden benches and the teacher’s desk as being on a raised platform at the end of the room. “Next to that were an extra desk and chair where very very good pupils were allowed to sit as extra privilege. Mischief makers—and there were plenty—were put underneath for punishment.” A wood stove heated the building in the winter, and water was brought in by pail. Sessions were 12 weeks in the winter and 12 weeks in the summer; usually the younger children went in the summer and the older ones in the winter.

Fred Wrangham, who attended the North Still River School, recalled, “This was really some school.” There were 20 pupils, especially during the winter term, and they ranged in age from 5 to 19. “Quite a task for the teacher as some of the pupils were nearly as old as she and rather hard to manage.” In his last two years at the school he had male instructors, which he said was “for the better, I think.”

All of the children walked to school and in the winter this could mean getting through 10- to 15-foot drifts on the roads. Mrs. Gale walked a half mile to school at the age of 4, and in the winter, “Often we rode to school on a big sled drawn by four or six oxen during the course of breaking out the roads.”

The Brown Building (Courtesy of the Harvard Historical Society)

At first the schools were under the jurisdiction of the selectmen; then in 1790 responsibility went to a “prudential committee” made up of a representative from each district, chosen at the annual town meeting. Each prudential was in charge of hiring and firing his own schoolmaster, inspecting the school, and controlling expenditures. The prudential was an unpaid position and often filled by someone wholly incompetent to supervise education. The division of school money was made in accordance with taxes paid, rather than in proportion to the number of school children in the districts. For this, and other reasons, the district system began to come under fire. In 1864 the town purchased the schoolhouses from the nine districts, but district control was left intact. However, the fact that replacements and repairs to schoolhouses became an annual budget item was another blow against the district system. Concerned citizens argued over its inefficiencies and limitations, agitating for consolidating the schools. Although the town took some steps to oversee the districts, Henry S. Nourse (1894’s History of the Town of Harvard Massachusetts, 1732–1893) wrote that “Conservatives continued to rally to the rescue of the moss-grown district system.” Finally, in 1878, four years before the state itself abolished it throughout Massachusetts, the district system was officially dead in Harvard. A superintendent was hired and a new centralized committee was formed; there was “consolidation” even though students continued to go to different schoolhouses.

In 1903, the town voted to replace the common schools with a single grammar school, but no action was taken for at least a year. In 1904, Stanley, Edwin, and Emily Hildreth sent a proposal to the Annual Town Meeting offering to buy two parcels of land for sale in the center of town for a grammar school. Emily promised to put $3,000 toward the construction, provided the town would allocate $9,000. The town readily accepted and in the spring of 1905 the “Harvard School Building” was dedicated. The two-story building, with 117 students that first year, had four classrooms with two grades to each, and separate coat rooms for boys and girls. The school never had an official name—one wonders what heated and unresolved debate lies buried in history—and became known as the Brown Building because of its color.

Now the town needed to find new uses for its old schoolhouses. An article on the 1905 town meeting warrant suggested using the old Center School as a gymnasium for the new grammar school, but the proposal was evidently voted down. Instead, the building was sold to a builder in Ayer. Winnie Farnsworth lamented the loss of the structure: “Had there been fore-thought of future needs, the old building, which was attractive with cupola, balcony, and in line and character with the church, would have made an ideal community house besides preserving an ancient landmark, of which so many have been lost.” The fact that the lumber from the schoolhouse was used to make an apartment house that could be seen from the railroad bridge in Ayer must have continued to upset Winnie Farnsworth and others. Four of the other buildings were sold as residences.

The Oak Hill schoolhouse is still a private home, the only house on the left going down Schoolhouse Road from Old Littleton Road. Clara Sears bought the North Still River building and moved it across the street to become the Indian Museum at Fruitlands Museum. Fred Wrangham remarked that it was hard to recognize, “encased as it is with brick and having several additions. But it is still the old school preserved, I hope, for a long time to come.” The West Bare Hill schoolhouse was torn down and the Shaker and Shabikin schoolhouses were taken by their communities.

Over the years the Brown Building underwent a gradual and complete transformation. In 1940, an addition was built onto the front of the school to provide an auditorium, gymnasium, and more classrooms. It was a two-story, square-looking structure that was also painted brown. During construction of the addition, the children went to school in a Forest Service camp on Littleton Road. In a matter of days all the furniture and equipment was moved there from the school building. On its end, the camp saw a makeover, with improved lighting and the installation of stoves and plumbing. Back in the Brown Building, space continued to be an issue, and from time to time some classes of elementary students were placed in Bromfield. In 1954, a free-standing brick building was constructed to the rear of the Brown Building, and in 1958 a five-classroom addition was built. It was clear by the mid-1980s that the school was overcrowded and that an expanded facility was needed. In what became an emotional conflict, the town debated whether to renovate the existing building or to tear it down and construct a more efficient building. Pragmatism won, and in 1988 the town landmark was demolished. Again, the children were removed during the two years of construction, this time to a building on Ayer Road owned by Ted Maxant. Since then there have been some renovations to the building. It is interesting to note that at none of these junctures was the school given an actual name. When the Brown Building was gone, the school simply became Harvard Elementary School.

One can only wonder what the answer will be in 2027 when a 10-year-old Harvard child is asked, “Where do you go to school?”

Editor’s note: The remarks by Gale, Wrangham, and Farnsworth were taken from papers in the collection of the Harvard Historical Society.