204 West Bare Hill Road, Harvard
c.1685
The town of Harvard was set off from Lancaster in 1732. About 90 years before, English colonists had settled a village they called Lancaster near a village of the Nashaway, a band of the Nipmuc. The two villages coexisted side by side for a time, but “the misperceptions that both groups had of one another’s culture made failure and conflict inevitable.” (Jaffee, p 32)
By 1675 the Nashaway had joined the Wampanoag under the leadership of Metacom, or “King Philip” as the English called him, in his war against the English colonists. Lancaster was destroyed in 1676, and later gradually repopulated, with several families occupying the region around Bare Hill and Still River about four miles northeast of the original settlement. The long view from Bare Hill provided safety from surprise. This is the area that broke away from Lancaster to become Harvard.
Built around 1685 between the ravages of King Philip’s War and the onset of King William’s War, the Houghton garrison on Bare Hill could shelter six families and one soldier—a total of twenty-five people—during times of threat, “with their provisions, clothing, and such of their more precious movables as could easily be brought with them.” (Nourse, 38) The last attack came in 1710. (Marvin, 127)
It is not clear who built the house; sources give conflicting information. 1. Ralph Houghton built the garrison with his son James, which was then moved to Bare Hill and added to (Historic Harvard Town, “Ralph Houghton House”); 2. Son James, a carpenter, built the garrison on Bare Hill land given to him by his father Ralph (Crane, 264; Houghton, 91; Nourse, 34); or 3. “constructed by either James Houghton or his father Ralph” (MACRIS).
For a very thorough description of the house’s features and a discussion of its preservation, see Historic Harvard’s “Historic Place of the Month” page here. The garrison house abuts 171 acres of conservation land, the Houghtons’ home fields.
Further reading:
Carter, Amory. Sawyers in America: A History of the Immigrant Sawyers. Worcester, 1883. (archive.org/details/sawyersinamerica00cart/page/n10)
Crane, Ellery Bicknell. Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County, Vol. 1. New York, 1907. (archive.org/details/historichomesan02crangoog/page/n9)
Drake, James D. King Philip’s War: Civil War in New England, 1675-1676. University of Massachusetts Press, 1999.
Historic Harvard Town—Historic Place of the Month: Ralph Houghton House (historicharvard.wordpress.com/historic-places/highlight-our-historic-places/historic-place-of-the-month/ralph-houghton-house)
Houghton, John W. The Houghton Genealogy: The Descendants of Ralph and John Houghton of Lancaster, Massachusetts. New York, 1912. (archive.org/details/houghtongenealog00houg/page/n13)
Hurd, D. Hamilton. History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men. Vol. 1. Philadelphia, 1889. (archive.org/details/historyofworcest01hurdd/page/n3)
Jaffee, David P. People of the Wachusett: Greater New England in History and Memory, 1630-1860. Cornell University Press, 1999.
Lepore, Jill. The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity. Vintage, 1998.
Marvin, Abijah Perkins. History of the Town of Lancaster, Massachusetts from the First Settlement to the Present Time, 1643-1879. Lancaster, MA, 1879. (archive.org/details/historyoftownofl00marv/page/n7)
Nourse, Henry S. History of the Town of Harvard, Massachusetts, 1732-1893. Harvard, 1894. (archive.org/details/historyoftownofh1732nour/page/n13)