About This Stamp
A 56-cent Great Americans series stamp depicting 17th-century American colonist and philanthropist John Harvard was issued on September 3, 1986, at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The design for the single-colored crimson stamp is based on a statue of John Harvard, which stands in Harvard Court. American sculptor Daniel Chester French created the statue.
Harvard was born in Southwark, London, England, in 1607. His father and most of his siblings died of the plague of 1625. Two years later, he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he earned bachelor and master of arts degrees. Harvard and his wife, Anne Sadler, sailed to New England in 1637, settling in Charlestown, Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was one of nearly 100 graduates of Oxford and Cambridge universities who immigrated to Massachusetts in the colony's early years. Like his fellow immigrants, he was determined that future generations have an education equal to that available in England.
Harvard became teaching elder of the Charlestown church, and was awarded a land grant of 120 acres before his death in 1638. He bequeathed his library and half his estate to the college that had been established at Newtowne (now Cambridge), Massachusetts, in 1636. In 1639, because of the generosity of his gift, the college was named in his honor.