HARVARD, Mass.--As America's oldest university, Harvard likes to boast of its uniqueness. After all, there's one and only one Harvard, right? Think again.

Five U.S. towns, a 14,420-foot-high Colorado mountain and a 20-mile-long glacier in southern Alaska share Harvard's moniker.

However, these Harvards pose little threat to the historic Cambridge university's name recognition. The University's 18,250-member student population is bigger than the five towns combined, which have fewer than 13,000 people.

Except for all being named, in one way or another, after the university, the Harvards of the world bear little in common. The towns range from Harvard, Idaho, a sleepy logging town with no businesses, one post office and 235 people, to Harvard, Mass., an affluent bedroom community an hour's drive from Cambridge, home to software engineers and financial consultants.

Harvard, Mass.

This north-central Massachusetts town of 5,100 residents seems like the idyllic New England community--an "unpretentious little town," according to the town's official history. Its downtown consists of three churches, the elementary and high school, the town hall and one general store.

One of the state's oldest communities, Harvard, Mass., got its name in 1732. With the form for the articles of incorporation having a blank space for town name, Massachusetts Secretary Josiah Willard, Class of 1698, named the new community after his alma mater.

This quiet town has little to do with the university that shares its name. Indeed, this reporter was the first visitor from the University that Town Administrator John D. Petrin, an eight-year veteran, could ever recall. But there is one connection between the two Harvards--the University's Oak Ridge Observatory is located here, about two miles from the town center.

The observatory contains an 84-foot-diameter radio-telescape antenna that scans 640 million microwave-radio channels every 20 seconds as part of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program. After the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) canceled SETI two years ago, private donors stepped in to keep the project alive. So if Earthlings are ever contacted by advanced aliens, both Harvards--the university and the town--will be, literally, the first to hear of it.

Harvard is also known historically as the home of the Shakers, a community of religious dissidents led by "Mother" Ann Lee who settled in the area starting in 1781. The last Shakers left in 1918.

The town was also the home of Fruitlands, a utopian community set up by Christian Transcendentalists who believed that fruit should be the mainstay of an ascetic lifestyle. They also believed all clothing should be of linen and private property abolished. Although the community was an economic failure, the Fruitlands Museums, which teach visitors about the Transcendental movement, are a popular tourist destination.

The largest industry here is apple picking; in the autumn, the town's nine major orchards--its largest employers--draw busloads of tourists eager to pluck Macintosh and Granny apples from the ripe trees.

But behind this town's quaint exterior is a privileged world of Bentleys and BMWs. Home prices range from $350,000 to $450,000 and most families own two to four cars, according to Petrin. Most of the residents are professionals, ranging from investment planners to electrical engineers working for New England firms like Digital Equipment Corp. and Raytheon Corp. Nearly all the residents are white.

Controversies, while rare, reflect Harvard's idiosyncrasies. In the mid-1980s, the installation of cable TV generated an uproar because some residents feared the negative impact of shows with racy, sexually explicit images. Even today, Petrin says, "we don't have a high penetration for cable."

More than 95 percent of students at the Bromfield School, the four-year high school, go on to college. Drug use, however, is a slowly growing problem among the town's youth; Harvard recently set up a task force to track the problem.

Still, Harvard is as safe a community as one can find, with only 1.3 crimes per 1,000 people, compared with a statewide average of 47.95.

The biggest news in recent years was the closing of the Fort Devens Army base, on the outskirts of town, which formerly housed 6,000 military personnel. On the newly vacant 4,000 acres of land, Gilette Inc., the razor maker, plans a distribution facility, and the Justice Department's Federal Bureau of Prisons will erect a prison hospital--only the second in New England.

Petrin says town residents are pleased that the prison will create jobs and bring business to the area.

Other town residents say they are not as enthusiastic. "There aren't too many people who are real excited about it," says Linda Zaitlin, a store clerk at the Harvard General Store and a 13-year resident