Massachusetts Hall - Harvard's Oldest Building

A stop on Harvard Yard and Cambridge, a free self-guided tour.

The plain red brick building in front of you, finished in 1720, is the oldest surviving building at Harvard. It was built as a dormitory, and it still mixes uses in a very Harvard way: the president and senior administrators work on the lower floors, while first-year students live on the top floor.

During the Siege of Boston, Harvard moved its classes to Concord, and some 640 soldiers of the new American army were quartered here.

Now look along Massachusetts Avenue to the yellow wooden house just south of here. Wadsworth House was built in 1726 for Harvard's presidents, and George Washington made it his first headquarters when he arrived in July 1775. A plaque placed there in 2016 names Titus, Venus, Juba and Bilhah, four enslaved people who lived and worked in the house for two presidents. In 2022, Harvard's report on its legacy of slavery found that its leaders, faculty and staff enslaved more than 70 people, and the university committed $100 million toward redress.

Getting here: Step through Johnston Gate and turn right; the long brick building just south of the gate is Massachusetts Hall.

Did you know?: Washington stayed at Wadsworth House only briefly before moving his headquarters to a larger mansion on Brattle Street, now the Longfellow House.

Photo op: Stand on the Yard path facing the hall's long brick side and fit its whole row of windows and chimneys in the frame.

More on Wikipedia: Massachusetts Hall · Siege of Boston · George Washington

Massachusetts Hall - Harvard's Oldest Building

Stops on this tour