Leonard Hoar

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Leonard Hoar (1630 – November 28, 1675) was an early American clergyman and educator. He was educated at Harvard College, graduating in 1650, and later studied medicine at Cambridge University. He occupied various ecclesiastical positions in England and produced works on biblical scholarship. After Charles Chauncy died, he was immediately elected and installed as the president of Harvard on December 10, 1672; which position he held until he resigned on March 15, 1675. He died nine months after his resignation. He had the distinction of being the first president of Harvard College who was also a graduate of it.

His epitaph in the Hancock Cemetery at Quincy, Norfolk County, Massachusetts reads ...

Leonard Hoar - died Nov.28,1675 in Boston a.45, and interred here Dec.6, new gs.

He was not well liked by his students or apparently even the people of Massachusetts in part due to his radical religious views. In Daniel Munro Wilson, Where American Independence Began (1902), pp. 53–54, the author writes ...

"At all events the students fell away from the president, and 'set themselves to Travestie whatever he did and said, and aggravate everything in his behavior disagreeable to them, with a design to make him Odious'."

(Quoting from Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana).

"He was forced to resign ... 'his grief threw him into a Consumption whereof he died November 28, 1675 in Boston'. (Cotton Mather)"

Hoar was a contemporary and colleague of Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Robert Boyle:

"Rev. Dr. Leonard Hoar, the third president of Harvard, particularly illuminated a case in the interrelationship of science and religion. Hoar shaped his theology through methodical logic and broadened his knowledge of the developing sciences in England through friendships with Sir Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac Newton, a leading figure in the newly chartered Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. Thus, Hoar became part of the new world of science and scholarship." Science & Theology News.[1]

Judge Samuel Sewall, one of the nine judges appointed to hear the Salem witch trials in 1692, was educated at Harvard by Leonard Hoar. Judge Sewall was one of only three students to graduate from Harvard under Hoar in 1673. He was also one of the few to come to Hoar's defense in 1674 or '75, just before Hoar was forced to resign the presidency of Harvard. Sewall argued that "the causes of the lowness of the Colledge were external as well as internal." Francis, Richard (2005). Judge Sewall's Apology (1st Ed.). New York:HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-716362-2. pp. 12, 22.