Harvard's Shaker community began with dissenters from the local state-funded church, who left the state church and affiliated themselves with Mother Ann Lee, founder of the Shaker denomination, when she visited the community in the early 1780s.

With Lee, they purchased "Square House", and in 1791, the community was called into gospel order.

By the early twentieth century, membership had dwindled to a handful from a peak of 200 in the 1850s, so in 1918, the community closed, and the buildings and remaining land were sold to Boston industrialist and "single tax" advocate Fiske Warren.

One of the best-known early Shaker hymns, "The Humble Heart," came from Harvard, with words by Eunice Wyeth and music by Thomas Hammond.

[4] Media related to Harvard Shaker Village, Massachusetts at Wikimedia Commons