On the 23rd of August 1480, the college being completed, the great west window being contracted to be made after the fashion of that at All Souls' College, a new president, Richard Mayhew, fellow of New College, was installed on the 23rd of August 1480, and statutes were promulgated.
His advocacy of an American episcopate, in connexion with which he wrote the Answer to Dr Mayhew's Observations on the Charter and Conduct of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (London 1764), raised considerable opposition in England and America.
Lord Stirling's agent sold them in 1641 to Thomas Mayhew (1592-1682) of Watertown, Mass., and his son Thomas (c. 1616-1657) for £40, and a little later the elder Mayhew obtained another deed for Martha's Vineyard from Gorges.
In 1659 the elder Mayhew sold a joint interest in the greater part of the island of Nantucket for £ 3 0 and two beaver hats to nine partners; early in the following year the first ten admitted ten others as equal proprietors, and later, in order to encourage them to settle here, special half-grants were offered to tradesmen.
Ten years after the foundation of Harvard, missionary work among the Indians was undertaken by John Eliot and Thomas Mayhew.