Excerpt from Henry S. Nourse’s “History of the Town of Harvard Massachusetts 1732–1893,” written in 1894.
From the registry of the Middlesex Court of Sessions it is learned that Simon Willard of Lancaster was licensed April 10, 1705 “to be an Inholder in sd Town having entered in Recognizance persuant to law.”
His was the first tavern in Harvard. It was located in Still River, and probably in the vicinity of Elisha D. Stone’s residence.
The entertainment of wayfarers was but a small part of the country innholder’s business in Simon Willard’s day. The inn was always an ordinary farm-house, one room in it being given to the retail trade in strong drink. Travelers were furnished with farmers’ fare, but not obsequiously welcomed.
No license was granted until the approval of the selectmen was obtained by the applicant. The innkeeper was required to advertise business by a sign, and to thrust out of his doors all tipplers at nine o’clock p.m.
Simon Willard’s tavern was closed by his death in 1706. Benjamin Bellows was a licensed innholder in 1711, probably at the homestead of Henry Willard, whose widow he had married. Samuel Willard obtained a license in 1718–19 and kept a tavern at the same location until 1726, when he removed to Lancaster, selling his business and real estate to John Wright from Andover.
It is probable that Samuel Willard’s tavern is standing, being now known as the Haskell house.
John Wright kept a licensed ordinary here for a short time, but being unable to pay off a mortgage of 1,100 pounds held by James Bowdoin, Samuel Willard regained possession of and sold the estate in 1734 to Theophilus Cushing, who transferred it to Joseph Haskell the same year.
The location of the more important among these can be told, at least approximately. Several of the licensees perhaps kept temporary groggeries rather than inns.
John Atherton’s house was at the southwest corner of the common, where Dr. Herbert B. Royal now lives.
When the Union Turnpike was completed and Harvard expected to become a way station on a great thoroughfare between Boston and the upper valley of the Connecticut, Jonas Merriam’s tavern was opened in rivalry with Ezra Wetherbee’s which faced it across the common. Neither turnpike nor inn rewarded the owners’ hopes, and Merriam removed to Shirley in 1816, selling his estate to Seth Nason.
When Robert Holland began his career as an innholder, he was but 21 years of age, and had recently married Experience, the older daughter of “Squire” Peter Atherton, a girl of 16. His tavern stood on the north side of the road about half way between Still River and the centre of the town, and was removed by Absalom B. Gale a few years ago when he built his house over its cellar. Holland died in 1755, and his wife the next year.
The Wetherbee Inn stood where the Free Public Library building now is. The noted landlords Ezra and Zophar Wetherbee, father and son, here served the public for over 60 years.
Abbot Jenkins bought the property and thoroughly renovated the building in 1875, at a cost of about $3,000, increasing the number of rooms in the house to 67, and gave the inn a new name—the “Elm House.” The expected guests did not throng the portals of the refurnished hostelry, and even with the rental of a part of the building for a store, and the income of the postmastership, Mr. Jenkins received scant interest for this outlay.
August 25, 1880, a little before midnight, a fire, undoubtedly incendiary in its origin, broke out in the stable, by which the inn and a dwelling adjacent were destroyed.
Since that date there has been no public-house for the entertainment of travelers in the town.
275 Years of a Town: In June 1732, the town of Harvard incorporated within the colony, after nearly 100 years of settlement in the area and several years of petitions, objections, and re-petitions to the legislature. To celebrate this milestone, the Press is running extracts from Henry S. Nourse’s History of the Town of Harvard Massachusetts 1732–1893.