--Born in Mendon, MA June 11, 1819

--Education

• Elementary: District Mendon Schools
• Secondary Education: Bellingham High School and the Academy of Amherst
• College Prepatory: Worcester Academy, Graduated with the class of 1840
• College: Brown University, Graduated with the class of 1845 as Salutatorian

--A year after graduating from Brown Thayer married Miss Caroline M. Capron of Millville, MA.

--After graduating from Brown, Thayer was hired by his old college preparatory school, Worcester Academy, to work as a teacher. Soon after becoming a teacher at the Academy Thayer was promoted to the position of headmaster. Thayer would would be the fourth principal of Worcester Academy and served from 1847 through 1849

--Thayer left the Academy in 1849 to pursue his goal to open an all female collegiate institution in Worcester. The result of his dream was the creation of the Oread College.

• At the time, May 14, 1849, when the Oread opened its doors to students it was the only all female collegiate institution in the United States and the second collegiate institution to admit women. (the first was Oberlin College)

--Thayer left the Oread in 1853, leaving the teaching staff in charge, to pursue his own political ambitions.

--In 1853 Thayer ran for and was elected to the position of State Legislature representative. He served from 1853 to 1854 and made the notable achievement of presenting a bill to incorporate the Bank of Mutual Redemption.

--In 1854, after leaving the State legislature, Thayer proposed to settle Kansas to ensure that it would be voted into the Union as a free state.

• As a result he organized the Emigrant Aid Company and contributed to the colonization of Kansas.

--In 1856 Thayer was elected to Congress after completing a rigorous campaigning effort.

• He won the election by a majority of nearly two to one.
• While in Congress he served on the Committee on Militia and was Chairman of the Committee on Public Lands.
• Thayer served in Congress from December 1857 through 1861.

--In 1860 Oregon chose Thayer as its delegate in the National Republican Convention as recognition for his efforts to admit Oregon into statehood.

--In 1861 Thayer was appointed by President Lincoln to serve as a special and confidential agent of the Treasury Department.

• Thayer served in this position from 1861 through 1862.

--From 1864 through 1870 Thayer served as a land agent for the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad Company.

SPECIAL NOTE: Over the course of his life Thayer invented such devices as the hydraulic elevator, sectional safety steam boiler, and a automatic boiler cleaner AKA sediment extractor.

--Eli Thayer died in Worcester April 15, 1899. He was 80 years old.

A Quote About Eli Thayer:

"It was said of Thayer in his years at Worcester Academy that he was invatiably good tempered and patient with his pupils; condoning rather than condemning their short-comings; helpful to those needing assistance; direct, simple and clear in his method of instruction. He governed by a quiet confidence rather than by a show of power, but the transgressor soon found that offenses could not be repeated with impunity."

*SOURCES*

• Small, Cloyd E. Achieving the Honorable: Worcester Academy. Worcester, MA: Davis Press Inc., 1979
• Wright, Martha Burt. History of the Oread Collegiate Institute. New Haven, CT: The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company, 1905