John Harvard Statue - The Statue of Three Lies

Photo: Jules Verne Times Two, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)

A stop on Harvard Yard and Cambridge, a free self-guided tour.

Meet John Harvard, or at least someone standing in for him. Daniel Chester French, who later sculpted the seated Lincoln in Washington, made this bronze, unveiled in 1884. Guides call it the statue of three lies, and the story holds up. The base reads John Harvard, Founder, 1638.

First, no portrait of Harvard survives, so French used a student, Sherman Hoar, as his model. Second, Harvard did not found the college; the colony's General Court voted to create it in 1636. Third, 1638 is the year he died and left the college money and his books, not the founding date. Defenders reply that his gift made him a founder in spirit.

You will see visitors rubbing the left shoe for luck. That shiny toe is a tourist habit that guides began encouraging in the 1990s, not an old student tradition.

The statue first stood beside Memorial Hall and moved here in 1924. Behind it rises University Hall, designed by Charles Bulfinch.

Getting here: Walk east across the Old Yard to the pale granite building in its center; the seated bronze figure faces you on its west side.

Did you know?: Across the Old Yard, Hollis Hall was home to both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau when they were students.

Photo op: Stand a few steps back on the path so the seated figure is framed against the granite of University Hall.

More on Wikipedia: Statue of John Harvard · Daniel Chester French · John Harvard · University Hall

John Harvard Statue - The Statue of Three Lies

Stops on this tour