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John Harvard (clergyman)

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The Reverend
John Harvard
The Statue of John Harvard on Harvard Yard, by Daniel Chester French (1884)
Born
Southwark, Surrey, England
Baptised(1607-11-29)29 November 1607[1]
Died(1638-09-14)14 September 1638 (aged 30)
Charlestown, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British America
Cause of deathTuberculosis
Alma materEmmanuel College, Cambridge (BA, MA)
OccupationPastor
Known forA founder of Harvard College
SpouseAnn Sadler
ChildrenNone
Signature

John Harvard (Nover 29, 1607–September 14, 1638) was an English dissenting minister in colonial New England whose deathbed bequest to Massachusetts Bay Colony established Harvard College, which was subsequently named in his honor.[2]

Harvard was born in Southwark, England. A graduate of Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge, he emigrated to New England in 1637. Harvard University considers him the most honored of its founders, and the Statue of John Harvard was erected in his honor on Harvard Yard on the university's campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Early life and education

Harvard House in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, the childhood home of Katherine Rogers, Harvard's mother

Harvard was born and raised in Southwark, Surrey, England, in present-day London, the fourth of nine children of Robert Harvard (1562–1625), a butcher and tavern owner, and his wife 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.[citation needed] Harvard was baptised in St Saviour's Church, now Southwark Cathedral,[3] 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, called "Harvard House", was largely rebuilt following a fire in 1595[4]

In 1625, bubonic plague reduced Harvard's immediate family to John, his brother Thomas, and Katherine. In 1626, Katherine remarried John Elletson (1580–1626), who died within a few months, and then Richard Yearwood in 1627 (1580–1632). Katherine died in 1635, and Thomas died two years later, in 1637.

Left with some property, Harvard's mother was able to send him to the University of Cambridge,[5] where he was admitted as a pensioner to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, on 19 December 1627; he was awarded a B.A. in 1632 and a M.A. in 1635.[6] He subsequently ministered in the church at Charlestown, Massachusetts, though it is not known whether he was ever ordained.[7]

Founding of Harvard College

Further information: Harvard College
The window at Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge, installed in 1884, which depicts John Harvard on left
Tablets in the chapel at Emmanuel Collegel

Two years before Harvard's death, Great and General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony, 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", appropriated £400 for the founding of the college.[8]

In an oral will spoken to his wife,[9] the childless Harvard, who inherited considerable sums from his father, mother, and brother,[10] bequeathed to the school £780, representing half of his monetary estate and, equivalent to £152,930.99 today, and the remainder to his wife.[3] His bequest was roughly the same size of the combined tax receipts for all of Massachusetts Bay Colony at the time.[11] He also gave his scholar's library, comprised of some 329 titles totaling 400 volumes.[12]: 192 

The following year, in gratitude, the college was named Harvard College in his honor.[13]

Death

On September 14, 1638, Harvard died of tuberculosis and was buried at Phipps Street Burying Ground in the Charlestown section of Boston.

Legacy

In 1828, Harvard University alumni erected a granite monument at his gravesite to his memory[5][14] after his original tombstone disappeared during the Revolutionary War.[15]

Harvard's widow, Ann, is believed to have married Thomas Allen, John Harvard's successor as the teacher at the Charlestown church in Boston. Allen acted as administrator in the execution of Harvard's estate and paid his bequests.[16]

The Harvard College undergraduate newspaper, The Harvard Crimson,[17] as well as what Harvard Magazine calls "smartass" tour guides,[18][19] 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 consid­ered not the founder, but rather a founder,[20][21] of the school‍—‌though the timeliness and generosity of his contribu­tion have made him the most honored of these:

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 destruc­tion of myths is a legiti­mate sport, but its only justifica­tion is the establish­ment of truth in place of error.

If the founding of a university must be dated to a split second of time, then the founding of Harvard should perhaps be fixed by the fall of the presi­dent's gavel in announc­ing 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 contribu­tion made up to that time to ensure its permanence"] is clearly entitled to be consid­ered a founder. The General Court ... acknowledged 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.[22]

Memorials and tributes

Harvard Chapel in Southwark Cathedral in Southwark, London
A plaque honoring John Harvard at 211, Borough High Street in London

In 1986, the John Harvard Statue, located in Harvard Yard on the campus of Harvard University, was featured on a stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service as part of its Great Americans series.[23] A figure representing him also appears in a stained glass window in the chapel of Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge.[7][5]

The John Harvard Library in Southwark, London, is named in Harvard's honor, as is the Harvard Bridge that connects Boston to Cambridge.[24]

In Southwark Cathedral, 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 US Ambassador, Joseph Choate.[25]

Personal life

On April 19 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.[26][27]

In the spring or summer of 1637, the couple emigrated to the New England Colonies, where Harvard became a freeman of Massachusetts[5] and, settling in Charlestown, a teaching elder of the First Church there[15] and an assistant preacher.[7] In 1638, a tract of land was deeded[clarification needed] to him there, and he was appointed that same year to a committee "to consider of some things tending toward a body of laws."[5][clarification needed]

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.[28]

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 £) toward the erecting of a college, and all his library. After him, another gave 300 £; others after them cast in more; and the public hand of the state added the rest." [8]

References

  1. ^ Tedder, Henry Richard (1891). "Harvard, John" . In Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney (eds.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 25. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 77–78.
  2. ^ Conrad Edick Wright, 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 ... Consumption kills slowly. By the time Harvard died, he knew what he wanted to do with his estate."
  3. ^ a b Rowston, Guy (2006). Southwark Cathedral – The authorised Guide.
  4. ^ Historic England. "Harvard House (Grade I) (1298524)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  5. ^ a b c d e Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1892). "Harvard, John" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
  6. ^ "Harvard, John (HRVT627J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  7. ^ a b c Emmanuel College: John Harvard Retrieved 2012-05-01
  8. ^ a b New England's First Fruits (1643)
  9. ^ Callan, Richard L. 100 Years of Solitude: John Harvard Finishes His First Century. The Harvard Crimson. 28 April 1984. Retrieved 13 October 2012
  10. ^ The Harvard Graduates' Magazine. Vol. 16. Harvard Graduates' Magazine Association. 1908. Retrieved 12 May 2014.
  11. ^ Foster, Margery Somers (1962). "Out of smalle beginings..." : An Economic History of Harvard College in the Puritan Period (1636 to 1712). Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 6.
  12. ^ Potter, Alfred Claghorn (1913). Catalogue of John Harvard's library. Cambridge: J. Wilson. Archived from the original on 6 May 2016. Retrieved 19 April 2016.
  13. ^ Charter of the President and Fellows of Harvard College
  14. ^ Edward Everett (1850). Orations and speeches on various occasions. Vol. I. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown. pp. 185–189.
  15. ^ a b Melnick, Arseny James. "Celebrating the Life and Times of JOHN HARVARD". Retrieved 20 September 2011.
  16. ^ J. Savage, A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, 4 Vols. (Little, Brown & Co., Boston 1860), I, pp. 36–37 (Internet Archive).
  17. ^ "Memorial Society Honors Founder of College In the Name and Image of Two Other Men – College Founded By Grant of the Massachu­setts General Court in the Year 1636". Harvard Crimson. 26 November 1934. 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 icon
  18. ^ Shand-Tucci, Douglas (2001). The Campus Guide: Harvard Universi­ty. Princeton Architectural Press. pp. 46–51. ISBN 9781568982809.
  19. ^ Primus V (May–June 1999). "The College Pump. Toes Imperiled". Harvard Magazine. Open access icon
  20. ^ Morison, Samuel Eliot (1935). The Founding of Harvard College. p. 210. John Harvard cannot rightly be called the founder of Harvard College...
  21. ^ Mather, Cotton (1853). Robbins, Thomas (ed.). 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 ... Vol. 2. Hartford: S. Andrus & Son. p. 10. But that which laid the most significant stone in the foundation, was the last will of Mr. John Harvard ...
  22. ^ Excerpted from Greene, Jerome Davis (11 December 1934). "Don't Quibble Sybil — The Mail" (Letter to the editor)". Harvard Crimson. ("Don't quibble, Sybil" is a line from Noël Coward's 1930 Private Lives.)
  23. ^ usstampgallery.com: John Harvard
  24. ^ Alger, Alpheus B.; Matthews, Nathan Jr. (1892). Harvard Bridge: Boston to Cambridge, March 1892. Boston, Massachusetts: Rockwell and Churchill. p. 14. Retrieved 20 September 2011.
  25. ^ "John La Farge Stained Glass in New England: A Digital Guide". library.bc.edu.
  26. ^ Morison, Samuel Eliot (1995). The Founding of Harvard College. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674314511. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
  27. ^ Dean, John Ward (July 1996). The New England Historical and Genealogical Register,: Volume 39 1885. Heritage Books. ISBN 9780788404986. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  28. ^ Charlestown Historical Society: Full Historic Timeline

Further reading

  • Rendle, William (1885). John Harvard, St. Saviour's, Southwark, and Harvard University, U.S.A. London: J.C. Francis.
  • Shelley, Henry C. (1907). John Harvard and His Times. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Co.
Wikisource has the text of an 1879 American Cyclopædia article about John Harvard.
Wikisource has the text of a 1905 New International Encyclopedia article about "John Harvard".
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