Harvard Urban Legends

School lore has it that the John Harvard Statue, located outside of University Hall, is a statue of the founder of the University. In reality, the story of this statue contains three lies.

Lie #1: John Harvard didn't found Harvard (the Massachusetts Bay Colony government did).

Lie #2: Harvard started in 1636, not 1638, as the inscription reads.

Lie #3: The representation isn't even John Harvard. No one knows what he looked like, since there are no surviving portraits of the man. Daniel Chester French, the sculptor, used a 19th century undergraduate for his model.