Repairs will be made to address damage to the powder house that extends to the roof line.
(Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
When the brick walls of the town’s historical powder house come down in July, townspeople can be reassured that they will go back up again—though it may take some time. Historical Commission Chairman Ken Swanton reports that the town has received the insurance money from the damage done to the building last fall, and the actual restoration can now begin.
The commission has what Swanton calls “a detailed game plan” of how to take the building apart and put it back together again. Last March the historic preservation firm of Finch and Rose provided pages of text and annotated photos to give graphic documentation of how the building was constructed back in 1812 and how it could be disassembled and then reconstructed. The report estimates that 95 percent of the exterior bricks can be saved.
Preservationist Robert Adam of Shirley, who assisted Finch in taking measurements and photographs back in March, will be volunteer clerk of the works. The masonry restoration will be done by Jeremy Truscott of Townsend, with whom Adam has worked on other preservation projects. The bricks will be cleaned and the walls rebuilt with historically correct lime mortar. The reconstruction will be weather dependent, as the mortar cannot be worked with if the temperature is too high.
Harvard is one of only 15 Massachusetts towns that have a powder house remaining from the days when almost every town had a free-standing building to house its munitions, and Harvard’s is the largest of the traditional square variety. Though no longer of any practical use, the powder house is a reminder of a part of Harvard’s history and a tribute to the town’s stewardship of its past.
