In the late eighteenth century, the Reverend William Emerson, father of Ralph Waldo, started a social library association in Harvard. Following a decline in interest, in 1856 its collection of books was offered to the town to be the basis of a free public library if it would agree to vote $100 per annum in support, which it did.

During the 1880s interest in a permanent library building grew. Residents provided funding, including Hannah Sawyer, who left a portion of her estate for the purchase of the land and the erecting of a permanent home for the library. In 1886, Town Meeting appropriated $3,500 to match the funds from Mrs. Sawyer’s estate. Land was purchased and William Channing Whitney of Minneapolis, Minnesota was engaged to design the building, which was dedicated June 22, 1887.

There were no changes to the building until 1902 when an addition for the children’s department and a large meeting room were completed. In 1983 an expansion and remodeling project, designed by Architect Design II, increased space and made the building handicapped accessible. By the early 1990s, additional space was again needed to meet the town’s library needs and the architectural firm CBT/Childs Bertram Tseckares, Inc. was engaged to plan for a new library at the heart of the town center.

The new Harvard Public Library construction project restored the 1878 Bromfield building, a former school designed by Peabody and Stearns and constructed with a grant from the estate of Margaret Bromfield Blanchard. In 2007 the original building, with an 11,500 square-foot addition, reopened as the town’s new public library. The renovation preserved the building for the next century, and the addition perpetuated and expanded the educational, civic and recreational qualities of the library.