The will was the subject of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case Harvard College v. Amory, which led to the Prudent man rule; left a bequest to Massachusetts General Hospital which led to McLean Hospital being named after him; and established the McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History, a professorship at Harvard University.

[5] It appears that McLean led a boom and bust merchant's life, his fortunes hitting a low at the end of the eighteenth century.

[7] McLean continued his business interests and it is said that he made $100,000 in a single speculation on molasses at the time of the War of 1812.

[1] In 1823, the year of his death, John McLean placed mile markers[8] six through ten out from Boston to his birthplace, Milton, Massachusetts.

This oversight was corrected in a codicil dated September 18, 1822, one year before McLean’s death, leaving everything not specifically disposed of to the Massachusetts General Hospital.

The will is transcribed in its entirely at Bator, Thomas E. and Seely, Heidi A., The Boston Trustee: The Lives, Laws & Legacy of a Vital Institution 21 (2015).

Nathaniel I. Bowditch, the son of Nathaniel Bowditch and historian of the Hospital, reported: “On the other hand the corporate name remained unchanged, many sons and daughters of Massachusetts have since contributed to it as a State institution, what perhaps they would have hesitated to bestow, if it had born the name of a private founder.”[12] John McLean, his wife Ann, his parents, Hugh and Agnes McLean, and her brother/trustee, Francis, are buried in a tomb at the Milton Cemetery in Milton, Massachusetts.

The tomb was deconstructed by the cemetery for safety reasons and the graves are now marked by the lintel which reads "F. Amory, A.D. 1842" and the original tombstone: