After only one year in his new country, Johnbecame ill, and, though he did not have time tomake a formal will, on his deathbed he requestedthat half of his estate and all of his books gothe the new college. The other half went to hiswife.
Thus, the college received its first privategift: 779 pounds and 329 books, mostly Latintheological texts, and the school was renamed forits benefactor. Most of the money that Harvardreceived from John came from the sale of thetavern in England, the Queen's Head.
But historian Samuel E. Morison '08 said in hishistory of Harvard that he could only verify thatHarvard received about half of the money--375pounds. It is widely believed that PresidentNathanial Eaton squandered the rest of John'sgift. Eaton was fired the year after the Collegereceived Harvard's gift; students charged that hebeat them brutally and that his wife served themhasty pudding made with goat droppings.
Harvard did receive the books that Johnbequeathed in their entirety. Then in 1764 a firein Harvard Hall consumed all but one of the books.John Downame's folio, "Christian Warfare Againstthe Devil, World, and Flesh," was saved--because astudent had failed to return the book on time.
The Harvard University libraries have sincetried to replace the books that were destroyed.
Much about John Harvard still eludeshistorians--they have found only two of hissignatures, and neither a portrait by him nor aletter from him has ever been found. The statuebearing his name in front of University Hall isnot actually a likeness of the minister, though itis one of the most widely photographed statues inthe United States.
But in part it is the lack of information aboutJohn Harvard, as well as his lack of distinctionduring his lifetime, that makes him symbolicallyso important.
As Harvard President Charles W. Eliot, Class of1853, said in an elegy to John Harvard in 1884,"He will teach that one disinterested deed of hopeand faith may crown a brief and broken life withdeathless fame. He will teach that the good whichmen do lives after them, fructified and multipliedbeyond all power of measurement or computation. Hewill teach that from the seed which he planted inloneliness, weakness and sorrow, have sprung joy,strength and energy ever fresh, blooming yearafter year in the garden of learning."
Some of the information for this story comesfrom information and letters in the Harvardarchives, Samuel Eliot Morison's histories ofHarvard, and E. J. Kahn's "Harvard."