Four years ago, I responded to an appeal to help with the Historical Commission. Gradually, the commission began to make progress. We reported to the selectmen in September and presented them with the town’s first five-year preservation plan.
Although our report was lauded by its chairman, the selectmen later made clear their displeasure with the policies and performance of the commission. For this reason and because of unfounded charges, I resigned from the Historical Commission and the Board of Assessors. This will allow me to return to my writing projects and allow someone else to take a different “tack.”
I wish to thank the fine commissioners and the commission staff volunteers who work to promote historic preservation. They focus on all historic properties, including municipal historic properties that have been notoriously ignored by past commissions and selectmen, as perhaps too often broadcast on our HHC website.
An example of that work is the full inventory of historic properties never before done and called for by past and current Master Plans. Our photographers took 3,000 photos of the 275 historic properties, 175 of which have never been surveyed. Especially remarkable is Susan Lee’s herculean work to research the property ownership histories, in conjunction with Pam Marston’s work on our historic house marker program. These are hallmark cases that seriously raise the state-of-the-art of our historic preservation efforts.
But unfortunately, Harvard’s historic properties continue to fade. So, my lesson learned is that historic preservation under the best of circumstances is difficult, but when the elected leaders and employed administrators are not convinced of the value of historic preservation, historic preservation by our volunteers becomes demoralizing.
I urge the Board of Selectmen to engage the Historical Commission in a conversation that would be helpful to the town, and I ask town citizens to lend their moral support to the individual members of the Historical Commission. Without historic preservation, the town will become another suburb with neglected historic assets and a lot of open space … but without a soul and without a story to tell.
Joseph R. Theriault
Tahanto Trail
