John Harvard was an English minister in Colonial America whose deathbed bequest to the founded two years earlier by the Massachusetts Bay Colony was so gratefully received that it was consequently ordered "that the agreed upon formerly to built at called Harvard ." Harvard University considers him the most honored of its founders—those whose efforts and contributions in its early days "ensure its permanence"—and a statue in his honor is a prominent feature of Harvard Yard.
Life
Early life
Harvard was born and raised in Southwark, Surrey, England,, the fourth of nine children of Robert Harvard, a butcher and tavern owner, and his wife Katherine Rogers, a native of Stratford-upon-Avon. Her father, Thomas Rogers, served on the borough corporation's council with John Shakespeare. Harvard was baptised in St Saviour's Church and attended St Saviour's Grammar School, where his father was a member of the governing body and a warden of the parish church. His grandparents' house in Stratford-upon-Avon, largely rebuilt after a fire of 1595, survives as 'Harvard House'. In 1625, bubonic plague reduced the immediate family to only John, his brother Thomas, and their mother. Katherine was soon remarriedfirstly in 1626 to John Elletson, who died within a few months, then to Richard Yearwood. She died in 1635, Thomas in 1637. Left with some property, Harvard's mother was able to send him to the University of Cambridge, He was admitted as a pensioner to Emmanuel College, Cambridge on 19 December 1627; he was awarded his B.A. in 1632 and M.A. in 1635. He was subsequently ordained a dissenting minister.
Marriage and career
On 19 April of either 1636 or 1637, Harvard married Ann Sadler of Ringmer in Sussex, sister of his college contemporary John Sadler, at St Michael the Archangel Church, in the parish of South Malling, Lewes. In the spring or summer of 1637, the couple emigrated to New England, where Harvard became a freeman of Massachusetts and, settling in Charlestown, a teaching elder of the First Church there and an assistant preacher. In 1638, a tract of land was deeded to him there, and he was appointed that same year to a committee "to consider of some things tending toward a body of laws." He built his house on Country Road, next to Gravel Lane, a site that is now John Harvard Mall. His orchard extended up the hill behind his house.
Death
On 14 September 1638, Harvard died of tuberculosis and was buried at Charlestown's Phipps Street Burying Ground. In 1828, Harvard University alumni erected a granite monument to his memory there, his original stone having disappeared during the American Revolution. Harvard's widow, Ann, is thought to have married Thomas Allen, his successor as the teacher of the Charlestown church. Allen acted as administrator in the execution of Harvard's estate and paid his bequests.
Founder of Harvard College
Two years before Harvard's death the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colonydesiring to "advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity: dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust"appropriated £400 toward a "schoale or colledge" at what was then called Newtowne. In an oral will spoken to his wife the childless Harvard, who had inherited considerable sums from his father, mother, and brother, bequeathed to the school £780half of his monetary estatewith the remainder to his wife. This bequest was roughly equal to the Massachusetts Bay Colony's annual tax receipts. Perhaps more importantly he also gave his scholar's library comprising some 329 titles. In gratitude, it was subsequently ordered "that the agreed upon formerly to built at called Harvard ."
Founding "myth"
"Smartass" tourguides and the Harvard College undergraduate newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, commonly assert that John Harvard does not merit the honorific founder, because the Colony's vote had come two years prior to Harvard's bequest. But as detailed in a 1934 letter by Jerome Davis Greene, Secretary of the Harvard Corporation, the founding of Harvard College was not the act of one but the work of many; John Harvard is therefore considered not the founder, but rather afounder, of the schoolthough the timeliness and generosity of his contribution have made him the most honored of these:
Memorials and tributes
A statue in Harvard's honor—not, however, a 'likeness' of him, there being nothing to indicate what he had looked like—is a prominent feature of Harvard Yard and was featured on a 1986 stamp, part of the United States Postal Service's Great Americans series. A figure representing him also appears in a stained-glass window in the chapel of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. The John Harvard Library in Southwark, London, is named in Harvard's honor, as is the Harvard Bridge that connects Boston to Cambridge. There is a memorial window in his honor in Southwark Cathedral.
