By Debra Bradley Ruder

Gazette Staff

Harvard's newest gate honors one of America's oldest poets, Anne Dudley Bradstreet.

On Saturday, participants at the "Celebration of Women at Harvard College" unveiled a plaque bearing prose from Bradstreet, who came to America in 1630 and authored the first volume of original verse written in the Colonies.

"I came into this Country, where I found a new World and new manners at which my heart rose," reads the tablet flanking the gate. A plaque on the other side of the iron gate -- which opens onto the Science Center -- commemorates the 25th anniversary of women students moving into Harvard Yard.

Bradstreet's words, according to Helen Vendler, the A. Kingsley Porter University Professor, embody her misgivings about leaving England, but also embody her eventual happiness in America, "as she lived in great affection with her husband, bore eight beloved children, and became the author of her learned and touching poems."

Bradstreet (1612-1672) lived in what is now Harvard Square, and her home apparently stood on the spot now occupied by the Tasty restaurant.

Her associations with Harvard College were many. Her father, Thomas Dudley, was governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and one of the original Harvard overseers. Her husband, Simon Bradstreet, also became governor of Massachusetts Bay and was an overseer of Harvard College. Among their children were Samuel, Class of 1653, and Simon, Class of 1660.

Harvard's newest gate was designed, crafted, and installed in 1995 as part of a multi-year effort to restore and complete the brick and ironwork fence enclosing Harvard Yard. The final phase of the project involved replacing a section of chain-link fence that had stood since the construction of Canaday Hall in 1974.

At Saturday's dedication, Professor Vendler noted that although Harvard has been educating women for many years, women were not full citizens until the 1970s, when Harvard opened its figurative gates.

"The delectable view of a New England autumn in the Yard has now been native to women for a quarter-century, and thousands of Harvard women have gone on to play significant roles in America's intellectual, artistic, economic, and political life," Vendler said. "The future promises thousands more. And though the first extraordinary Anne Bradstreet could not be educated at Harvard, the next Anne Bradstreet will, we hope, be one of us."