:John Harvard

{{short description|English clergyman and philanthropist (1607–1638)}}

{{Infobox person

| honorific_prefix = The Reverend

| name = John Harvard

| image = John Harvard statue.jpg

| caption = The John Harvard statue (1884) {{nobr|at Harvard University}}

| baptised = {{birth_date|df=y|1607|11|29}}{{cite DNB |volume=25 |wstitle=Harvard, John |first=Henry Richard |last=Tedder |pages=77–78}}

| birth_place = Southwark, Surrey, England

| death_date = {{death_date|df=y|1638|09|14}} (aged 30)

| death_cause = Tuberculosis

| death_place = Charlestown, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British America

| occupation = Pastor

| known_for = A founder of Harvard College

| spouse = Ann Sadler

| children = None

| alma_mater = Emmanuel College, Cambridge (BA, MA)

| signature = JohnHarvard Signature.jpg

}}

John Harvard (1607{{ndash}}1638) was an English Puritan minister in colonial New England whose deathbed{{r|HMagJanFeb2000}} bequest to the

founded two years earlier by the Massachusetts Bay Colony was so gratefully received that the colony consequently ordered "that the

agreed upon formerly to

built at

called [[Harvard College|Harvard

{{Sic|hide=y|Colledge}}]]".{{r|charter}}

Harvard was born in Southwark, England, and earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

In 1637 he emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America, where he became a teaching elder and assistant preacher of the First Church in Charlestown.

Harvard died of tuberculosis in 1638, leaving a large sum of money and his 400-volume scholar's library to the colony's new school, which the colony then voted to name in his honor.

Harvard University considers him the most honored of its founders—those whose efforts and contributions in its early days "ensure[d] its permanence"—and a statue in his honor is a prominent feature of Harvard Yard.

Life

=Early life=

File:Harvard House Stratford (5665088336).jpg was the childhood home of John Harvard's mother Katherine Rogers.]]

Harvard was born and raised in Southwark, Surrey, England, (now part of London), the fourth of nine children of Robert Harvard (1562–1625), a butcher and tavern owner, and Katherine Rogers (1584–1635), a native of Stratford-upon-Avon. Her father, Thomas Rogers (1540–1611), served on the borough corporation's council with John Shakespeare.{{cn|date=March 2020}} Harvard was baptised in St Saviour's Church (now Southwark Cathedral){{r|guide}} 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'.

{{National Heritage List for England|num=1298524|desc=Harvard House|access-date=15 March 2020|grade=I}}

In 1625, bubonic plague reduced the immediate family to only John, his brother Thomas, and Katherine. Katherine was soon remarried{{mdashb}}firstly in 1626 to John Elletson (1580–1626), who died within a few months, then (1627) to Richard Yearwood (1580–1632). She died in 1635, Thomas in 1637.

Left with some property,

Harvard's mother was able to send him to the University of Cambridge,{{r|acab}} 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.{{r|acad}}

=Marriage and emigration to New England=

On 19 April of either 1636 or 1637, Harvard married Ann Sadler (1614–55) of Patcham in East Sussex, sister of his college contemporary John Sadler, at St Michael the Archangel Church, in the parish of South Malling, Lewes.{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=PQMdzhnfaSwC&dq=john+harvard+married+ann+sadler+lewes&pg=PA212|title= The Founding of Harvard College|date=1995|first= Samuel Eliot |last=Morison|publisher= Harvard University Press|isbn= 9780674314511|accessdate=24 August 2021}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wN2rznjAbdsC&q=john+harvard+married&pg=PA326|title=The New England Historical and Genealogical Register,: Volume 39 1885|first=John Ward|last= Dean|date=July 1996|publisher=Heritage Books |isbn=9780788404986|access-date=4 April 2020}}

In the spring or summer of 1637, the couple emigrated to the New England Colonies, where Harvard became a freeman of Massachusetts{{r|acab}} and, settling in Charlestown, a teaching elder of the First Church there{{r|melnick}} and an assistant preacher, though it is not known whether he was episcopally ordained.{{r|emma}}{{r|emma}} In 1638, a tract of land was deeded{{clarify|date=March 2012}} to him there, and he was appointed that same year to a committee "to consider of some things tending toward a body of laws."{{r|acab}}{{clarify|date=March 2012}}

He built his house on Country Road (later Market Street and now Main Street), next to Gravel Lane, a site that is now John Harvard Mall. His orchard extended up the hill behind his house.{{r|charlestown}}

=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,{{r|acab}}{{r|Everett}} his original stone having disappeared during the American Revolution.{{r|melnick}}

Harvard's widow, Ann, is believed to have married again, this time to Thomas Allen, Harvard's successor as teacher of the Charlestown church and administrator of Harvard's estate.J. Savage, A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, 4 Vols. (Little, Brown & Co., Boston 1860), I, [https://archive.org/details/agenealogicaldi00unkngoog/page/n56 pp. 36–37] (Internet Archive).

Bequest to college

{{multiple image

| footer = Tablets outside Harvard Yard's Johnston Gate. The tablet on the left (above) quotes from a longer history which continues, "And as we were thinking and consulting how to effect this great work, it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. Harvard (a godly gentleman and a lover of learning, there living among us) to give the one-half of his estate (it being in all about 1700{{nbsp}}£) toward the erecting of a college, and all his library. After him, another gave 300{{nbsp}}£; others after them cast in more; and the public hand of the state added the rest."{{hsp}}{{r|fruits}}

| width = 390 | align = center

| image1 = New England's First Fruits plaque, Harvard University - IMG 8969.JPG

| width1 = {{#expr: (145* 510/655) round 0 }}

| image2 = Harvard Colledge plaque, Harvard University - IMG 8970.JPG

| width2 = {{#expr: (145 *935 / 665) round 0}}

}}

File:John Harvard on stained glass window, Emmanuel College.jpg window (1884) depicting John Harvard on left]]

File:John Harvard Tablet, Emmanuel College.jpg ]]

Two years before Harvard's death the Great and General Court of the Massachu{{shy}}setts Bay Colony{{mdashb}}desiring 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"{{mdashb}}appropriated £400 toward a "schoale or colledge"{{r|charter}} at what was then called Newtowne.{{r|fruits}}

In an oral will spoken to his wife{{r|Crimson1984}} the childless Harvard, who had inherited considerable sums from his father, mother, and brother,{{r|grads}}

bequeathed to the school £780{{mdashb}}half of his monetary estate{{mdashb}}with the remainder to his wife;{{r|guide}}

this bequest was roughly equal to the Massachusetts Bay Colony's annual tax receipts.{{refn|{{cite book|last=Foster|first= Margery Somers |title="Out of smalle beginings..."{{hsp}}: An Economic History of Harvard College in the Puritan Period (1636 to 1712)|publisher= Belknap Press of Harvard University Press|year= 1962|page=6}} }}

Perhaps more importantly{{r|potter1}} he also gave his scholar's library comprising some 329 titles (totaling 400 volumes, some titles being multivolume works).{{r|potter2|p=192}}

In gratitude, it was subsequently ordered "that the

agreed upon formerly to

built at

called [[Harvard College|Harvard

{{Sic|hide=y|Colledge}}]]."{{px1}}{{r|charter}}

(Even before Harvard's death, Newtowne had been renamed{{r|charter}} Cambridge, after the English university attended by many early colonists, including Harvard himself.){{r|degler}}

=Founding "myth"=

The Harvard College undergraduate newspaper, The Harvard Crimson,{{r|crime1934}} as well as what Harvard Magazine calls "smartass" tour guides,{{r|ST}}{{r|toes}}

commonly assert that John Harvard does not merit the honorific founder, because the Colony's vote creating the institution occurred 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 consid{{shy}}ered not the founder, but rather a{{nbsp}}founder,{{r|morison1}}{{r|mather}} of the school{{mdashb}}though the timeliness and generosity of his contribu{{shy}}tion have made him the most honored of these:

{{quote|

The quibble over the question whether John Harvard was entitled to be called the Founder of Harvard College seems to me one of the least profitable. The destruc{{shy}}tion of myths is a legiti{{shy}}mate sport, but its only justifica{{shy}}tion is the establish{{shy}}ment of truth in place of error.

If the founding of a universi{{shy}}ty must be dated to a split second of time, then the founding of Harvard should perhaps be fixed by the fall of the presi{{shy}}dent's gavel in announc{{shy}}ing the passage of the vote of 28 October, 1636. But if the founding is to be regarded as a process rather than as a single event [then John Harvard, by virtue of his bequest "at the very threshold of the College's existence and going further than any other contribu{{shy}}tion made up to that time to ensure its permanence"] is clearly entitled to be consid{{shy}}ered a founder. The General Court{{nbsp}}... acknowl{{shy}}edged the fact by bestowing his name on the College. This was almost two years before the first President took office and four years before the first students were graduated.

These are all familiar facts and it is well that they should be understood by the sons of Harvard. There is no myth to be destroyed.{{r|greene}}

}}

Memorials and tributes

Image:Harvard Chapel, Southwark Cathedral.jpg, London]]

File:Plaque_re_John_Harvard_at_211_Borough_High_Street_London_SE1.jpg, London]]

A statue in Harvard's honor—not, however, a 'likeness' of him, there being nothing to indicate what he had looked like{{r|emma}}—is a prominent feature of Harvard Yard (see John Harvard statue) and was featured on a 1986 stamp, part of the United States Postal Service's Great Americans series.{{r|stamp}} A figure representing him also appears in a stained-glass window in the chapel of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.{{r|emma}}{{r|acab}}

The John Harvard Library in Southwark, London, is named in Harvard's honor, as is the Harvard Bridge linking Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts.{{r|alger}}

In Southwark Cathedral, where Harvard was baptised, the Harvard Chapel in the north transept was rebuilt with donations from Harvard graduates and dedicated in 1907. The stained-glass window was designed by the American artist, John La Farge and given by the American ambassador to the United Kingdom, Joseph Choate.{{Cite web|url=https://library.bc.edu/lafargeglass/|title=John La Farge Stained Glass in New England: A Digital Guide|website=library.bc.edu}}

References

{{reflist|30em|refs=

{{refn|name=acab|{{Cite Appletons'|wstitle=Harvard, John|year=1892}} }}

{{refn| name=acad |{{acad |id=HRVT627J |name=Harvard, John}} }}

{{refn|name=alger|{{cite book

|last1=Alger |first1=Alpheus B. |last2=Matthews |first2=Nathan Jr.

|title=Harvard Bridge: Boston to Cambridge, March 1892 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1qQJAAAAIAAJ

|access-date=20 September 2011 |year=1892 |publisher=Rockwell and Churchill |location=Boston, Massachusetts

|page=14

}} }}

{{refn|name=charlestown

|1=[http://charlestownhistoricalsociety.org/history/historic-timeline/ Charlestown Historical Society: Full Historic Timeline]

}}

{{refn|name=degler|{{cite book

|year=1984|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NebLe1ueuGQC&pg=PA18|access-date=20 September 2011 | isbn=978-0-06-131985-3

}} }}

{{refn|name=toes|{{cite magazine

|url=http://harvardmagazine.com/1999/05/pump.html|title=The College Pump. Toes Imperiled

|magazine=Harvard Magazine|date=May{{ndash}}June 1999|author=Primus{{nbsp}}V

}} {{open access}} }}

{{refn|name=ST |{{cite book

|last=Shand-Tucci|first=Douglas|title=The Campus Guide: Harvard Universi{{shy}}ty|pages=46{{ndash}}51

|publisher=Princeton Architectural Press|year=2001|isbn=9781568982809|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3g6vmGl0UgwC}}

}}

{{refn|name=emma

|1=[http://www.emma.cam.ac.uk/about/famous/index.cfm?id=4 Emmanuel College: John Harvard] Retrieved 2012-05-01

}}

{{refn|name=Everett|{{Cite book

}} }}

{{refn|name=fruits|

1=[https://archive.org/stream/NewEnglandsFirstFruitsInRespectFirstOfTheCounversionOfSome/New_Englands_First_Fruits#page/n21/mode/2up New England's First Fruits (1643)]

}}

{{refn|name=grads|{{cite book

}} }}

{{refn|name=greene|

Excerpted from {{cite news|first=Jerome Davis |last=Greene |author-link=Jerome Davis Greene |url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1934/12/11/dont-quibble-sybll-ped-note-the-crimson/ |title=Don't Quibble Sybil {{mdash}} The Mail" (Letter to the editor) |work=Harvard Crimson |date=11 December 1934}} ("Don't quibble, Sybil" is a line from Noël Coward's 1930 Private Lives.)

}}

{{refn|name=HMagJanFeb2000

|Conrad Edick Wright, [http://harvardmagazine.com/2000/01/john-harvard.html John Harvard: Brief life of a Puritan philanthropist] Harvard Magazine. January–February 2000.

"By the time the Harvards settled in Charlestown John must already have been in failing health{{nbsp}}... Consumption kills slowly. By the time Harvard died, he knew what he wanted to do with his estate."

}}

{{refn|name=charter

|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20130317205458/http://hlcra.harvard.edu/files/harvardcharter.pdf Charter of the President and Fellows of Harvard College]

}}

{{refn|name=crime1934|{{cite news

|url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1934/11/26/memorial-society-honors-founder-of-college|work=Harvard Crimson|date=26 November 1934

|title=Memorial Society Honors Founder of College In the Name and Image of Two Other Men – College Founded By Grant of the Massachu{{shy}}setts General Court in the Year 1636

|quote=When the members of the Memorial Society place a wreath on the statue of John Harvard today, expecting to honor the memory and the image of the founder of Harvard College, they will be honoring the likeness of another man and the name of a man who was not the legal founder of the college.

}} {{open access}} }}

{{refn|name=Crimson1984

|1=Callan, Richard L. [http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1984/4/28/100-dears-of-solitude-pthe-john/ 100 Years of Solitude: John Harvard Finishes His First Century]. The Harvard Crimson. 28 April 1984. Retrieved 13 October 2012

}}

{{refn|name=guide|{{cite book

|title=Southwark Cathedral – The authorised Guide |first=Guy |last=Rowston |year=2006

}} }}

{{refn|name=morison1|{{cite book

|quote=John Harvard cannot rightly be called the founder of Harvard College...

}} }}

{{refn|name=mather|{{cite book

|title=Magnalia Christi Americana: Or, The Ecclesiastical History of New-England, from Its First Planting, in the Year 1620, Unto the Year of Our Lord 1698{{nbsp}}...

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f0Y5s7bsqDQC&pg=PA10|volume=2|year=1853|publisher=S. Andrus & Son

|quote=But that which laid the most significant stone in the foundation, was the last will of Mr. John Harvard{{nbsp}}...

}} }}

{{refn|name=melnick|{{cite web

}}{{better source|date=September 2024}} }}

{{refn|name=potter1

|1=Alfred C. Potter, [https://books.google.com/books?id=yRsUAAAAIAAJ "The College Library."] Harvard Illustrated Magazine, vol. IV no. 6, March 1903, pp. 105–112.

}}

{{refn|name=potter2|{{cite book|url=http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/dl/reading/001940602|title=Catalogue of John Harvard's library|first=Alfred Claghorn|last=Potter|location=Cambridge|publisher=J. Wilson|year=1913|access-date=19 April 2016|archive-date=6 May 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160506035219/http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/dl/reading/001940602|url-status=dead}} }}

{{refn|name=stamp

|1=[http://usstampgallery.com/view.php?id=7e107de3fa1437e84bc766bf7c84641bcd258a7c usstampgallery.com: John Harvard]

}}

External links

{{cite book|url=http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/dl/reading/001940602|title=Catalogue of John Harvard's library|first=Alfred Claghorn|last=Potter|location=Cambridge|publisher=J. Wilson|year=1913|access-date=19 April 2016|archive-date=6 May 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160506035219/http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/dl/reading/001940602|url-status=dead}}

Category:1607 births

Category:1638 deaths

Category:17th-century Calvinist and Reformed Christians

Category:17th-century English clergy

Category:17th-century New England Puritan ministers

Category:17th-century deaths from tuberculosis

Category:Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Category:English Dissenters

Category:English philanthropists

Category:Harvard University people

Category:People educated at St Saviour's Grammar School

Category:Clergy from Southwark