Wednesday, November 26, 2025

It is the 26th of November 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

I don’t know how they figure it out, but in the research for this episode, I came across a list of the most photographed statues in the United States. #1 is the Statue of Liberty, #2 is the Lincoln Memorial, and #3rd is a statue with its own peculiar history as a memorial for a minister-in-training in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was John Harvard. The statue is not a likeness of him, but reads “John Harvard, Founder, 1638”. Any Harvard tour guide will inform you that this is the “statue of three lies”. The first lie is that the man in the statue is not John Harvard. It was made over a century after Harvard died and after the fire that destroyed any images we may have had of him.

• Very quick story- it might be the case that it is a contemporary of the artist Sherman Hoar, the descendant of a former Harvard president who was not given the usual honor of an academic house named after him- for… reasons… Hoar’s descendant, Sherman, is the man in the statue.
• Secondly, Harvard was not the founder of the University. It was founded by the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
• Thirdly, it was founded in 1636, not 1638. 1638 is when Harvard died, and his will gave a generous donation to the already founded New College in New Towne- later Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

So, who was this wealthy man whose name is now synonymous with the Ivy League?

His life is quite tragic- he was born on this, the 26th of November (by some accounts) in 1607 in Stratford-Upon-Avon… yes, the very same town as William Shakespeare. The two were baptized in the same church, and Harvard’s grandfather had worked on the city council with Shakespeare’s father- the family likely knew each other.

John was one of the younger children in a large family that was almost completely destroyed in the plague of 1625. He lost his father and most siblings. His mother would remarry twice, and he would attend Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he would study theology- it was a hotbed for Puritans, such as himself, at the time.

In 1631, he graduated and remained through 1635 to receive a Master’s degree. But as a Puritan, he would have been unhappy with the ascension of Charles I as King and his anti-Puritan leanings.

There was also the issue of personal loss- not only his father and siblings, but both of his stepfathers and his mother would die by 1636. It left him a man without a family, but with a sizable inheritance. All of this would make him an ideal candidate for the new venture across the Atlantic: the Massachusetts Bay Colony. John would marry Ann Sadler, the sister of a schoolmate, John Sadler, later secretary to Oliver Cromwell. The two set sail in 1637 and settled in Charlestown, where he was made a freeman, helped compile a “body of laws,” and was granted a house and 120 acres to raise cattle. But in 1638, less than a year after they moved, he contracted tuberculosis. On his deathbed, he bequeathed half of his estate for a “school or college” to the colony as well as his personal library of some 400 books. John Harvard was only 30 when he died.  

Half of his estate came to about 800 pounds- or roughly 500,000 dollars today. His library was part of the library that burned in the infamous fire of 1764- only one book remains today- a rather obscure work on spiritual warfare, “The Christian Warfare Against the Devil World and Flesh” by John Downame, published in 1634. The story goes that it was checked out and overdue, thus escaping the fate of the others.

X The following year, the board of the new College decided to rename it in honor of the man whose life was marked by tragedy but found solace in studying, and studying the Scriptures in particular. Harvard has been memorialized in a stained glass at Old Cambridge- and he’s been on a postage stamp. The problem with the stained glass and the stamp is that they are images based on the famous statue of Harvard that’s not Harvard…. Today, we remember the man, somewhere behind the statues and stamps- the namesake of the school- John Harvard 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and Psalm 24:

The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains,
The world, and those who live in it.

For He has founded it upon the seas

And established it upon the rivers.

Who may ascend onto the hill of the Lord?

And who may stand in His holy place?

One who has clean hands and a pure heart,

Who has not lifted up his soul to deceit

And has not sworn deceitfully.

He will receive a blessing from the Lord

And righteousness from the God of his salvation.

This is the generation of those who seek Him,

Who seek Your face—even Jacob.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 26th of November 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who doesn’t appreciate the stray bullet Jacob takes there in the Psalm “even Jacob!” He is even Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who finds it ironic that the 500,000 that saved the school is now just a smidge over what 4 years with housing costs to attend… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.