Harvard is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts. The town is located 25 miles west-northwest of Boston, in eastern Massachusetts. A farming community settled in 1658 and incorporated in 1732, it has been home to several non-traditional communities, such as Harvard Shaker Village and the utopian transcendentalist center Fruitlands. It is also home to St. Benedict Abbey, a traditional Catholic monastery. Today it is an affluent residential town noted for its excellent public schools, with its students consistently ranking in the state's top ten test results in English and math. The population was 6,520 at the 2010 census. The official seal of the town depicts the old town public library on The Common prior to renovations that removed the front steps.