THAYER
THAYER
titCau (m/(!^^
Thaxter was an assistant instructor in biology in
Harvard college, 1886-88, assistant professor of
cryptogamic botany, 1891-1901, and full professor
after 1901. After her marriage, Mrs. Thaxter still
made Appledore her home, but spent the winters
in Boston, traveling
abroad in 1880. Her
husband died in 1884,
and was buried at
Kittery, Maine, the
bowlder placed at his
grave bearing an in-
scription written for
it by Browning,
whose poems Mr.
Thaxter had for
many years inter-
preted. After lier
husband's death Mrs.
Thaxter spent the
winters in Ports-
mouth, but her house
at Appledore was during the rest of the year the
meeting-place of her distinguished friends,
among whoni were James T. Fields, John G.
Whittier, John Knowles Paine, Arthur Whit-
ing, J. Appleton Brown, Childe Hassam, Sarah
Orne Jewett and many other authors, musicians
and artists. Her first verses, which she sent to
a friend, were handed to James Russell Lowell,
then editor of the Atlantic Monthly, who chris-
tened them " Land-locked " and published them
in the magazine in 1861. This poem was followed
in 1867 by the prose serial Among the Isles of
Shoals, which was published in book form, 1873.
She is also the author of: Poems (1872); Drift-
tcood, poems (1879); Poems for Children (1884);
The Cruise of the Mijstery. and other Poems, and
Idylls and Pastorals (1886); Aii Island Garden
(1894), and of ^-i J/(2mo?'a6Ze Murder in "Stories
by American Authors" (1884). She died on
Appledore i:,land. Isles of Shoals, Aug. 26, 1894.
THAYER, Amos Madden, jurist, was born in Mina, N.Y., Oct. 4, 1841; son of Ichabod and Fidelia (La Due) Thayer; grandson of Col. Ichabod and Lucretia Thayer, and of Joshua and Julia (Cowles) LaDue, and a descendant of Thomas Thayer, who settled at Braintree, Mass., 1630. He attended the district schools and the academies at Mayville and Westfield, N.Y.; was graduated from Hamilton college, Clinton, N.Y., A.B., 1862; subsequently recruited a company of volunteers for the 112th New York regiment, of which he was commissioned lieutenant, and was soon after promoted to the U.S. signal corps under Gen. A. J. Myer, serving until the close of the war, when he was mustered out as brevet-major. He set- tled in St. Louis, Mo., in 1866, was admitted to the bar in 1868, and elected circuit judge for the
K ^i?
city of St. Louis, serving, 1876-86. He was mar-
ried, Dec. 22, 1880, to Sidney Hunton, daughter
of Alexander and Sidney (January) Brother of
St. Louis. He was appointed U.S. district judge
of the eastern district of Missouri, serving, 1887-
94, and was promoted to the office of U.S. circuit
judge, 8th circuit, in August, 1894, which office
he still held in 1903. The honorary degree of
LL.D. was couferreil upon him by Hamilton col-
lege in 1892.
THAYER, Eli, representative, was born in Men- don. Mass., June 11, 1819; son of Cushman and Miranda (Pond) Thayer; grandson of Benjamin and Ruth (Alden) Thayer, and of Eli and Hannah (Daniels) Pond, and a descendant of Thomas Thayer, who settled in Braintree, Mass., 1630, and of Jolm Alden of the May- floicer. Eli Tliayer attended the district scliools, the acade- mies at Bellingham and Amherst, Mass., and the "Worcester Manual Labor school; taught school in Douglas, Mass., 183o- 36; assisted his fatlier in a country store at Millville, 1836-40, and while a student at Brown university, from which lie was graduated, A.B., 1845, A.M., 1848, taught school in Hopkinton, R.I., 1842, and had charge of the boys' high school in Providence in 1844. He was an instructor in Worcester academy, 1845-48; studied law under Judge Plim* Merrick, but did not practise, and in 1848 founded the Oread insti- tute, a school for young women, which was com- pleted in 1852, and which he conducted until 1857. He was made a meinber of the Worcester school board in 1852; was an alderman of the city, 1852- 53, and a representative in the general com-t of Massachusetts, 1853-54, introducing the bill to incorporate the Bank of Mutual Redemption, and in March, 1854, divulging his plan to settle the territorial contest, which had resulted from the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, with emigrants from the free states. Li April he secured a charter for the Massa- chusetts Emigrant Aid company, which became the New England Emigrant Aid company, with a capital limit of $5,000,000. By means of lectures, speeches and published articles, with the aid of Amos A. Lawrence, who furnished money, he carried on the propaganda, which Horace Greeley called " The Plan of Freedom." An advance colony of antislavery settlers set out for Kansas
i^^
