John Harvard

John Harvard (1607–1638) was an English minister in America, "a godly gentleman and a lover of learning" whose deathbed bequest to the "schoale or Colledge" founded two years earlier by the Massachusetts Bay Colony was so gratefully received that it was consequently ordered "that the Colledge agreed upon formerly to be built at Cambridgeg shalllbbe called Harvard Colledge." The institution 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.