Town Clerk Janet Vellante looks for documents in the town vault. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

Walk out the back door of Town Hall, across the wide pavement area, into the door of the old fire station; dial the combination, and pull open the large, heavy, steel door. This is the routine Town Clerk Janet Vellante follows several times during the course of a week to access the town vault. On its steel shelves are stored the invaluable records of the history of the town and its citizens, dating back to 1732. Until recently, a vault was an integral part of the town house, not separate from it.

Harvard's first town house was built in 1828, across Ayer Road from the present Town Hall and facing south. According to Nourse in his History of Harvard, on March 30, 1854, the selectmen were instructed to buy a safe "wherein to bestow the town records." To conserve space, a committee was appointed to examine the books and papers in the Town Clerk's office and to save those that were valuable and 'destroy all that are worthless.' Nourse bemoans the short-sightedness of this charge, feeling that it accounts for the fact that there are no files of papers relating to the town's affairs in the early period of its history.

After 40 years, the first Town Hall still served the requirements of ordinary town meeting, "but for many social uses it was not easily adaptable, nor commodious enough" (Nourse). The proposal to build a new hall came to a vote in March of 1870 and the first meeting in the new Town Hall was held on April 1, 1872. A fireproof vault was built in 1881, installed under the stairs in the front of the building. A cloak room occupied the space under the other set of stairs. It appears that renovations were done in the 1970s: the cloak room became the selectmen's office, and other offices were created in the large open area on the first floor.

When Janet Vellante became Town Clerk, 17 years ago this May, she worked in the front office under the stairs on the right. She recalls how the space was cramped and to get at her files, she had to move her computer table out of the way. The vault was across the foyer, under the other set of stairs. Vellante describes it as "a small, sloped roof, closet-sized room that was used for storage. It was never climate-controlled and the brick interior was crumbling." There was also an "outside" vault in the old fire station, which had been vacated in 1976 when the new station was built on the hill behind it. Through the inside double doors was a center hallway, off of which were offices: the assessor and town administrator on the right, treasurer's offices on the left. The lunch area was around the back corner in the hall.

Space became more and more of an issue, and Town Hall was finally renovated in 1995. During that summer, all staff was put on the second floor, where Vellante recalls, "we sweltered," and files were stored in off-site trailers. Downstairs, walls were removed and a large, open space was created once again. The former vault room became a handicapped bathroom, and the office of Town Clerk now extended on both sides of the inside double doors. Upper Town Hall was partitioned off into offices for the town administrator and for land-use offices and the Board of Health. Whether by design or oversight, there was no provision made for a vault inside the building. For the first time in almost 150 years, all of the town vault contents would be housed in a separate building.

Behind its steel door, the vault is a medium-sized room, with four, ceiling-high rows of shelves; it is climate-controlled for temperature and humidity. Because there is no secure storage for temporary records in Town Hall, the vault is more crowded than it should be, making it a bit difficult to maneuver. Invaluable history is stored here—vital records, deeds of town properties, church records, tax and cemetery records. Files upon files line the shelves.

The early record books are not only historically informative, they are also works of art, written in beautiful cursive with sepia ink. Vellante explains that the earliest books are in fragile condition and there is an ongoing preservation program, with annual funding from the Community Preservation Commission. It costs around $1,000 to have a book preserved, which involves taking the book completely apart, cleaning, and conditioning it. While they await their turn for restoration, the earliest books are kept in custom-made cardboard boxes to stabilize them.

Also housed in the vault is a handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence; such a document was given to all towns. In 1866 town records ceased to be written in a single book and began to be printed yearly in a separate book. The vault has a complete (except for 1924) set of annual reports. Reading through them is a delightful avenue to the past. One can learn that in 1866 the town liquor agent, who was paid a salary of $40, listed a complete inventory of the "liquor and casks on hand." The expense for "breaking roads," (plowing) is listed, as are all of the bills the town paid during the year.

Also in the vault, along with backup discs and checks, are the voting machine and past election tapes, all ballots that included a state or federal election (stored in sealed bins for 22 months), and the Time Capsule from the 250th anniversary of the town in 1982. Given its somewhat nomadic life, one wonders where the town vault will be housed when that capsule is opened on June 29, 2032.