Wine, Military Men, and Philosophical Apparatus Figure in Diverting History of College Halls

Undergraduates who pass through the Johnston Gate between Massachusetts and Harvard Halls are very likely to think of these most venerable of Yard buildings as just two old structures, quaint and pleasant to look at perhaps, but hardly comparable for comfort or utility with newer edifices. Harvard contains a collection of musty classrooms, with desks and benches like the little red schoolhouse, cut deep with the initials of years of bored listeners to lectures. Remodeled Massachusetts houses Seniors in desirable rooms which are the object of nothing but envy on the part of the undergraduate.

As a matter of historical fact, horses, dean's offices, light wines and beers, bullets and billets, play parts in the past of these two halls. Massachusetts, the older of the pair and the oldest building now standing in the University, has perhaps the less eventful history. It was erected in 1720 at the expense of the Province of Massachusetts to meet the demands of the housing problem. Complaint was made that "a considerable number of students were obliged to take lodgings in the town of Cambridge for want of accomodations in the College", and to please the collegiate commuters of the day, the building was erected substantially as it now stands. Used variously as a dormitory and general college hall until the Revolution, it was taken over for a time by the invading British soldiers, who quartered first themselves and then their horses in its rooms. It has been suggested that the parietal regulation regarding the keeping of animals in college rooms and its origin in the observed results of this latter practice.

Harvard Was Store

Among the halls which have led long and checked careers in the service of the University, few have served a greater diversity of purposes than Harvard Hall, noted for its bell which acts as an alarm clock to the seniors. From the time of its construction in the seventeenth century it has been used as general University headquarters, Revolutionary barracks, grocery store and wine shop.

The original building was built in 1672, but was destroyed by fire in 1764, when the Massachusetts General Court was holding sessions in it, having been driven out of Boston by an epidemic of smallpox. "The Massachusetts Gazette" of February 2 gives a graphic account of the blaze.

"In the middle of a very tempestuous night.... Harvard Hall, the only one of our ancient buildings which remained, and the repository of the public library and the philosophical apparatus, was seen to be in flames. As it was in vacation time, when all the students were dispersed, the fire could not be perceived until the whole surrounding air began to be illuminated by it. The fire was conjectured to have started in the room used by the General Court; thence it burst into the Library. The books easily submitted to the progress of the flame, which spread through the whole building, and in a short time this venerable monument to the piety of our ancestors was reduced to a heap of ashes. The other Colleges, Stoughton Hall and Massachusetts Hall, were in the danger of sharing the same fate... But by the blessing of God upon the vigorous efforts of the assistants, the rain was confined to Harvard Hall; and there, besides the destruction of the private property of those who had chambers in it, the public loss is very great, perhaps irrespectable."

A new building, which is the one still standing, was built in 1765-67. Its uses since then have been many and varied. During the Revolution, for a short period when the students were transferred to Concord. Harvard Hall served as head-quarters for the American Army. Half a ton of lead was torn from the roof at the time to be moulded into bullets. George Washington was received there in 1789.

Held Beer and Skittles

The "buttery" now obsolete, used to be in Harvard Hall. According to one account, "as the commons rendered the college independent of private boarding houses, so the buttery removed all just occasions for resorting to the different marts of luxury intemperance and rain. This was a kind of supplement to commons and offered for sale to students, at a moderate advance on the cost, wines, liquors, groceries, stationery and in general, such articles as it was necessary and proper for them to have occasionally, and which for the most part, was not included in the commons fare.

Harvard Hall has also contained at various time, the chapel, library commons. University offices and philosophical apparatus. From 1842 to 1871 it was the custom to serve Commencement dinners there.