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

There was little variety in the early domestic architecture of Harvard, save such as marked the difference in the means of the owners. The houses were all built after saw mills were conveniently near, and there were therefore few log structures, unless for the sheltering of animals. From the old dwellings yet standing and others well remembered, we know that when the house was two storied in front it rarely was but one at the back, the rear slope of the roof extending down to within nine or ten feet of the ground. Sometimes the pitch of this slope changed at a line on the level of the front eaves. The kitchen was always in the rear portion. A less common style was the gambrel roof, found upon both one and two storied houses. Reverend John Seccomb’s mansion afforded a fine example of this form of roof. Sometimes the upper story projected slightly over the lower. Porches or other irregular features were very exceptional. A single huge chimney passed up through the center of the house, usually of brick though sometimes of stone. It was at a much earlier date, or in very humble homes, that chimneys were of logs lined with clay. These were called catted chimneys and were usually built outside the frame.

The pioneers had no lime, for there was little in Massachusetts except the small quantity made from quahaug and oyster shells upon the sea coast, until the discovery of lime stone in 1697 at Newbury. Clay mortar was the common substitute. But about the date of Harvard’s incorporation lime stone of excellent quality was found very near its southern boundary, making possible many improvements in house construction, and especially in interior finish, at reasonable cost. No more welcome boon had come to the people in the Nashaway Valley since the building of Prescott’s Mills, than the lime-kilns of Fairbank and Houghton and the Whitcombs, in the north-east corner of Bolton. Lath and plaster thenceforward took the place of high wainscots and sheathed ceilings and walls.

All mechanics served a long apprenticeship and became skilful, ambidextrous workmen; the more certainly because everything had to be patiently wrought by hand. Thus the carpenter with a few rude tools laboriously fashioned from rough lumber everything of wood that enters into the construction of a house, and apprentices served three or four years before they could rank as “journeymen” in the craft. The joinery work was therefore excellent, but the mathematical principles of carpentry were ill understood; the chief timbers of the framing generally being disproportionately large, always square in section, and usually of hewn oak, while the joists in floors and wall spaces were too few and of insufficient depth for stiffness. The raising of even an ordinary house was a somewhat formidable undertaking, and furnished occasion for a general junket, when all the stout arms of the neighborhood were called to help in lifting the heavy post, beams and plates to their places under the direction the master carpenter. Not seldom serious accidents are recorded upon such occasions, attributable no doubt in many cases to the over free use of stimulating beverages, which the builder was always expected to provide.

It very early became the practice in New England to cover the rough exterior boarding with a second course of thin lapped sheathing to keep out wind and rain. The boards for this were “clave” from suitable logs in the same manner as were staves for hogsheads, and were called by the same English name clapboards—a contraction from clave boards. For the roof, where a larger lap was essential, shingles similarly riven and shaved were used. The nails for fastening these to the frame were bought by number, not by weight as now—shingle and lath by the thousand, board nails by the hundred—and were very expensive. For the first meeting-house ordinary spike known as “double tens” cost nine shillings per hundred, lath nails seven shillings sixpence per thousand, and board nails from two and one half to six shillings per thousand.

The specimens of early architecture remaining in Harvard are not numerous, and such as have outlasted conflagration and decay, are mostly so concealed with renovations, or radically altered to suit modern tastes and requirements, that few original features are distinguishable. Frame and foundations often, had they tongues, would be able to tell us stories of the French and Indian wars; but doors and windows, blinds and cornices, porch and veranda speak plainly of changeable ownership and comparatively recent vanities or fashions. The stern simplicity of the bare brown farm house of the first half of the last century, with its typical adjuncts—an elm or two, two clumps of lilacs, a few cinnamon roses and hollyhocks, a well sweep and big brown barn—was in homely keeping with the plain-mannered, frugal, industrious lives that budded, blossomed and bore fruit therein.

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.