John Harvard, English minister and philanthropist (d. 1638)
John Harvard (1607–1638) was an English dissenting minister in Colonial America 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

bee

built at

Cambridge shalbee

called Harvard

Colledge."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.