Look at Massachusetts Hall, older than any building at Harvard College, the first institution of higher learning in the British colonies in America and second only to the Wren Building at the College of William and Mary. Built between 1718 and 1720 and designed by Harvard presidents John Leverett and Benjamin Wadsworth, this was commissioned as a dormitory of 32 chambers and 64 small private studies intended to house 64 students. Imagine student footsteps here in the early 18th century; later, during the Siege of Boston in the Revolutionary War, 640 American soldiers took quarters in the hall, and much of the interior woodwork and hardware — including brass doorknobs — disappeared.
The building has worn many faces: after Thomas Hollis donated a quadrant and a 24-foot telescope in 1722, it served as an informal observatory. Stand with a sense of continuity — this structure connects colonial education and the upheavals of the Revolution, and it still anchors Harvard’s history. Picture Revolutionary soldiers bunking behind these walls where colonial students once walked.