Word: hancockers
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...Harvard's worst financial crises ever occurred during the Revolution, when noted patriot John Hancock served as the Corporation's treasurer...
...Hancock, one of Boston's wealthiest merchants, gave generously to his alma mater and the Corporation rewarded him by naming him treasurer. But Hancock had little taste for the job and spent most of his time travelling on business or political missions, neglecting the University's finances. He failed to collect term bills or pay debts and complicated matters by carrying the University's financial records with him on his travels...
...April 11, 1775 President Samuel Langdon sent Hancock a letter threatening to replace him, but the treasurer did not respond. A series of follow-up letters went similarly unanswered and the situation deteriorated until the Corporation sent a tutor to look for Hancock, then in hiding during the Revolution, and retrieve the records. He failed and Hancock remained treasurer until his death, when he left *16,000 of unsettled University accounts and a personal debt to Harvard of *1495, for money he had unscrupuously borrowed...
Ebenezer Storer, a Boston merchant, replaced Hancock in the early 1780s, and with the help of fellow Fellow John Lowell he turned the University's finances around and made Harvard financially independent of the legislature. In 1789 the College held public securities worth more than *10,000. By carefully watching market rates they converted Harvard's assets to dollars, so that in, 1793 the College's portfolio amounted to more than $182,000., three times as much as 15 years before...
FROM THE TOP FLOOR of the Parker House one evening last month, Boston looked placid. Seen from that angle, the just budding green of the Common was painted brightly against the John Hancock lower. If you'd looked out over downtown that night, you might well have thought yourself in a windy city of brotherly love...