MESSAGE FROM THE COMMISSION CHAIR
The Harvard Historical Commission welcomes you to its website where you can learn more about the rich history of our town, and where you can work with us in our historical preservation effort by joining our conversation here on our ‘BLOG’. We are fortunate to live in a town that has retained so much of its traditional New England character, from our picturesque villages, to our farmsteads and landscapes and our many landmark buildings.
PORTRAIT OF A HISTORIC HARVARD HOME; 3 OAK HILL RD; Zopher Wetherbee Family Courtesy Harvard Historical Society (Click on photo to enlarge)
One of the roles of the Commission is to preserve and protect the historic assets of the town and its Harvard Center and Shaker Village historic districts. If you live in one of these districts, please familiarize yourself with our ‘BOOK SHELF‘, where you will find our Design Guidelines, and Harvard’s Historic Preservation Bylaw. If you would like to know where the historic districts are located, click the ‘DISTRICTS‘ tab at the top of this page to see the maps. You are welcome to browse other sections of our website including our ‘BLOG‘ by selecting the appropriate tab shown at the top of this page.
Another role of the Commission is to advocate for the preservation of all historic assets in our town. Those efforts typically begin with our planning discussions some of which will occur here on our “Harvard Historical Commission” website and blog. Scan the ‘RECENT POSTS’ in the right sidebar to see which discussion in our ‘BLOG‘ you would like to join. Commissioner Joe Theriault is our web publisher. He will help us with all aspects of our website.
Harvard has a rich history to be told, and we want to encourage as many story tellers as possible to help us by telling the stories of Harvard with words and pictures. Please visit our ‘WALKS‘ page.
We encourage you to join us at our monthly meetings on the first Wednesday of each month and other meetings shown on our ‘CALENDAR‘. There, we will formulate our plans, make our decisions and execute our programs. While you browse our ‘BOOKSHELF‘, I encourage you to familiarize yourself with the Meeting Agenda for our next meeting.
Finally, we are here to serve the people of Harvard so we hope to hear from you. Please leave us a note or question below in the ‘LEAVE A REPLY’ box.
Yours truly,
Ken Swanton Chair, Harvard Historical Commission
Have you considered making the HHC Permit Application form (http://harvard.ma.us/Pages/HarvardMA_BComm/Historical/Application%20for%20Certificate.pdf) available for download here on the site? I poked around a bit, but could not find where it might be (you also might consider adding a Search feature). Better still, create an online version of the form that could be completed and submitted online. Thanks!
Okay, Mark. The form is on our ‘Book Shelf’ under Commissioners Tools but it sounds like it is buried a little too deep and is difficult to find. We’re going to run with this thought and see if we can move it up in visibility since the application process is one of our key functions. We also like your idea of an online version that could be completed and submitted online.
Stay tuned. We are following up on your comment, Mark. Thanks!
Hmm, “Book Shelf” doesn’t seem like an intuitive label for what it contains. Maybe a new tab for “Forms” would be better. Also, why not create hyperlinks for each of the sections in the text, so rather than telling people to click on something above, they can click on the word itself…. just as you did for “Meeting Agenda”.
Good luck!
Thanks, Marc. Will definitely follow-up on your thought regarding hyperlinks. Great idea! The Application form is actually the only form we have, but I think that we will create a new tab for the Application process which will include the form of course. In any case, we’re working on it. Appreciate your thought, Marc.