A Legacy for Harvard.

The report in the Sunday papers that five hundred thousand dollars had been bequeathed to Harvard by E. Price Greenleaf, of Boston, awakened the liveliest interest among the friends of the university, but further inquiry does not confirm this report in its details. Yesterday afternoon President Eliot, in conversation with a CRIMSON editor, stated that nothing definite was known in regard to the legacy. All that was known was that several years ago, Mr. Greenleaf made a will, bequeathing considerable property to Harvard. It is not known how large an estate the deceased left, nor how much of his property comes to Harvard. These facts will only be known when the will comes to probate. There is no doubt, however, but that Harvard will receive a legacy of considerable value, but the rumor that Harvard is the recipient of the magnificent sum of five hundred thousand dollars, is unfounded.

A few words on the life of Mr. Greenleaf will be of interest. E. Price Greenleaf was born in Boston in 1790. He was educated in the Boston Latin School, but did not take a collegiate course. He was prepared for a business career, but was not successful. After spending a few years in South Carolina, he returned to Boston, and went into the flour trade under the firm name of Apthorp & Greenleaf. The firm failed in 1830, whereupon the young Greenleaf went to live with his father in the town of Quincy. He never entered business to any great extent again, but lived a very quiet life, rarely mingling in society, but spending his time in study and in the cultivation of his garden. He was very poor, but his father and his aunt, Mrs. Daniel Greenleaf, were people of means. At their death he received a small fortune of $40,000, as far as can be learned, and by the death of his sisters, Greenleaf acquired their property, the exact amount of which is not known, but which made him a rich man. In 1879 Mr. Greenleaf moved from Quincy to Boston, where he took up his residence on Waltham St., in the South End. He lived in the most frugal parsimonious manner, denying himself many of the common luxuries of life, and might almost be called a miser, were not the purpose of his saving so noble. Peculiar in habits and in dress, and so frugal in the midst of his wealth, he was a mystery to many of his neighbors. Of late years he has spent his summer in the little town of Nunda, New York, where his simplicity of life was again remarkable. He lived in a little wooden house, his only companion being a trusted servant, and his principal food was produced in his own garden, which he and his servant managed together. It was known that he was possessed of a large fortune, and that it was his wish to endow Harvard, but the exact disposition of his property is not known. Mr. Greenleaf died at his residence on Saturday, at the advanced age of ninety-six years.