Excerpt from Henry S. Nourse’s “History of the Town of Harvard Massachusetts 1732–1893,” written in 1894.

Previous to the Revolution, any mail matter direct to the inland towns of Massachusetts was held at Boston until called for, or reached its destination by the news-carriers, who once a week, on horseback, travelled over their established routes, delivering from their saddlebags to subscribers the diminutive and ill-printed Gazettes and Chronicles of the period. Silent Wilde and Isaac Church of Lancaster were the post-riders through this part of the county for a time before the war for independence. One of them started from the city every Monday over his route to the Connecticut valley, and returned at the end of the week. The following is one of the advertisements found in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News Letter of May 5, 1774.

SILENT WILDE, News-carrier along the Road from Boston through Lancaster, Rutland, &c. to Northampton, Deerfield, &c. desires seasonably to put his Customers in Mind that the first half year of his last Engagement ends with the News Paper of the 9th of May Inst. when there will be due from each of them One Dollar &c. the Payment of which some Time in the Week following the said 9th of May, at the usual Places where he has left their Papers, he greatly hopes will be Certain and Punctual—and flatters himself therefore that none of them will be so Unkind as by their Delinquency, to deny him the Means of defraying the great Expence attending the same.

His former Customers who are yet in Arrears may not expect to be called upon again in this Way as he must have his Pay in a short Time without fail. May 5, 1774.

Letters for Harvard citizens were occasionally advertised as remaining uncalled for in both the office at Boston and that at Worcester. In 1795, Lancaster was granted a post-office, and the Boston, Concord, and Lancaster Mail Stage, twice a week, conveyed travellers and the mail to and from the metropolis. The Lancaster office served Harvard and other towns adjoining. Sixteen years more passed before a post-office was established at Harvard. The first mail-carrier was the proprietor of the “Harvard, Lunenburg, and Winchendon Stage,” which came from Concord over the Union Turnpike, and passed on through Shirley Wednesdays and Saturdays, returning on Mondays and Thursdays. The Wetherbee tavern was a regular “half-way house,” where the horses were changed and the passengers alighted to stretch cramped muscles or lubricate dry throats.

The first four postmasters kept the office in their stores. Mr. Wetherbee moved it from the Whitcomb store to his tavern which stood at the north corner of the same street, on the site of the library building. Mr. Hersey, who had been in charge of the mail during Mr. Jenkins’s official term, upon the destruction of the Wetherbee tavern by fire, August 25, 1880, established the office in the building now occupied by Gale and Dickson. There it remained until removed to its present room in the library building, June 25, 1887. The Harvard office was given the privileges of the money-order system in 1872.

Before the establishment of the [Still River] post-office, for several years it was customary for the postmaster at Harvard to send the mail belonging to the Still River people to the store of H.N. Smart by any chance messenger. There it was thrown into a box from which every comer helped himself as he pleased.

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.