An ox-drawn cart crawls uphill toward Harvard. Two men plod beside it. Late winter rains have left the road rutted and ankle-deep in mud. The oxen strain; the axles creak; the men cuss.
Jabez turns to his companion. "Well," he says, "at least we can get a decent mug of ale at Wetherbee’s on the Common when we get to the top of this blasted hill."
"Not I," says Ephraim, fixing Jabez with a steely gaze. "I am a temperance man now. I took the pledge, and so should you."
And that’s how the battle lines were drawn in Harvard for more than 150 years.
Well, maybe not exactly like that. But from 1705 until the mid-1800s, Jabez and Ephraim, as well as their neighbors and kin, could visit a steady succession of drinking establishments within Harvard’s boundaries.
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“The Lips That Touch Liquor Shall Never Touch Mine,” sheet music, 1874. (Photo/American Sheet Music collection, U.S. Library of Congress)
Women in the temperance crusade, particularly members of the more radical Anti-Saloon League, adopted the motto from a popular song from 1874. |
The first licensed innkeeper in Harvard was Simon Willard of Lancaster, who received approval from the selectmen to open an inn in Still River in April 1705. The inn was an ordinary farmhouse, of which one room was set aside for serving "strong drink," according to Henry Nourse, who wrote
History of the Town of Harvard. Willard sold his rum and ale for only a year, as he died in 1706. But he was followed by a long line of license holders right up to Zophar Wetherbee in 1861.
"Strong drink" was a part of most community activities in the colonial era. When Harvard’s townspeople voted to raise a meeting house in 1773, they also voted to provide "two barrils of Rum," "eight barrils of Sider," and "eight barrils of bear" for the 160 men involved. Presumably, being somewhat tipsy was less hazardous for carpenters in the days before circular saws and nail guns. Still, one hopes that the roofers, at least, imbibed with moderation.
As described in Nourse’s history, Harvard in the early 1800s consumed its fair share—and perhaps a little more—of brewed, distilled, or fermented liquids:
During the first quarter of the present century [1800s] there were usually two taverns upon the borders of Harvard’s common, besides at least four retailers in the town, all licensed to sell spirituous liquors. To these there resorted every day and evening all sorts and conditions of men—from the dignified moderate-drinking squire, smoothly shaven and broadcloth-clad, to the disreputable toper whose shaking hand could hardly carry the glass to his lips, carbuncular-nosed, blear-eyed, wholly unkempt, and wrapped in tatters. They came from all the districts of the town, on foot, a-horseback, in every variety of vehicle—some bringing butter and eggs to exchange for a few groceries and a jug of New England rum; some coming empty handed to kill time and soak themselves with toddy and flip.
The Wetherbee family operated a tavern on the Common for many years, on the spot where the old library now stands. Ezra Wetherbee held the license in the early 1800s. Then, in 1805, the Union Turnpike Company built its route through Harvard, part of a link between Boston and Albany. Foreseeing a steady stream of thirsty travelers, Jonas Merriam opened a competing establishment on the other side of the Common. Unfortunately for Merriam, a newer turnpike through Bolton soon offered an easier, less hilly route. When the travel boom failed to materialize, Merriam gave up on his tavern in 1816.
Over the years, taverns dotted Harvard, springing up here and there like mushrooms. The Common was obviously a prime location, but drinking establishments also appeared on the road to Still River, in the Old Mill section on the route between Lancaster and Groton, and on the road to Littleton at the northern end of Oak Hill.
At these establishments, according to Nourse, townsfolk smoked tobacco, argued politics, swore, joked, sang, and drank until around midnight. Then they staggered out to go "howling home."
Maybe it was the howling that led to a backlash. At any rate, in the late 1820s, the temperance movement reached Harvard. Ironically, the formative meeting for the local temperance society took place in Ezra Wetherbee’s tavern, and several of the first members held licenses to sell alcohol. At that November 1829 meeting, 14 members pledged to use "ardent spirits" only for medicinal purposes and to "discountenance" their use in the community. Within a year, the society had swelled to more than 100 members.
That first burst of temperance took account only of rum and whiskey, not of wine, beer, or hard cider. A far more rigorous group was formed on Jan. 22, 1842, and called itself the Harvard Washington Total Abstinence Society. Members of this group pledged "to abstain entirely from the use as a beverage of all intoxicating liquors, and from the traffic in them. . . ."
Within a few weeks, this determined group had persuaded the most recent owner of the tavern on the Common, Zophar Wetherbee, to convert his business into a "temperance public house" and cease serving distilled liquor. In exchange, the society guaranteed him $400 in business every year, by promising to sell 400 tickets to an annual temperance banquet at his tavern on Washington’s birthday. (The canny Zophar seems to have retained the right to serve cider to his less abstemious clientele.)
The temperance banquets continued for at least 50 years, up to the time of Nourse’s writing in 1894. By that time, the Total Abstinence Society had 1,200 members, and liquor was no longer sold anywhere within Harvard. Nourse noted that ballot measures to allow local liquor licenses never won more than 20 votes.
With its embrace of abstinence, Harvard was clearly in the national mainstream. In 1919, the entire country became "dry" with the ratification of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, making prohibition the law of the land. Not until its repeal in 1933 did Harvard again have to search its conscience on the liquor question.
From the 1940s through the 1960s, Harvard voters faced a "local option" measure at elections every two years. Under the provisions of state law, voters could say yea or nay to three separate licensing possibilities:
- Whether to permit the sale of all alcoholic beverages in taverns, restaurants, and clubs;
- Whether to permit only the sale of wine and malt beverages in those establishments; or
- Whether to permit the sale of alcoholic beverages in retail stores for consumption off the premises.
With monotonous regularity, Harvard rejected each of these measures. Yet the margin against licensing grew gradually smaller as the decades passed.
In 1966, the "wet" votes very nearly carried the day. Owners of the Wichterhaus Restaurant, located on Ayer Road, waged a vigorous campaign in favor of a measure allowing restaurants to serve beer and wine. The measure fell short of passage by a mere 23 votes, and the Wichterhaus Restaurant closed shortly thereafter.
Around the same time, the state finally decided that when a town said "no," it meant "no." A new state law allowed a town that rejected the local option measures three times in a row to drop them from the ballot. Thereafter, it would take a petition by 10 percent of the voters to re-open the issue.
From time to time in the following years, the thorny problem arose again. In 1980, for example, Henry Joly, who owned the Joly Farms Restaurant on Ayer Road, circulated a petition to get the matter on the ballot. But his campaign, like that of the Wichterhaus Restaurant, ended in failure.
Not until this year, when Fruitlands Museum received a license to serve alcohol in its restaurant and tea room, did Harvard once again take up the traditions of Simon Willard and the Wetherbees. Rest in peace, both Jabez and Ephraim.