Nathaniel Thayer II (11 September 1808 in

Lancaster, Massachusetts Lancaster is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, in the United States. Incorporated in 1653, Lancaster is the oldest town in Worcester County. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 8,441. History In 1643 Lancaster was firs ...

– 7 March 1883 in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

) was a United States financier, philanthropist, and the father of John Eliot Thayer II, an amateur

ornithologist Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

Early life

He was the son of Nathaniel Thayer I (1769–1840), a Unitarian congregational minister of

, and Sarah Parker Toppan, daughter of Christopher Toppan and Sarah Parker.

Banking

His brother

John Eliot Thayer I John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Seco ...

had been operating a successful banking firm in Boston. When he needed more people, he asked Nathaniel Thayer II to be his business partner, now calling the firm John E. Thayer and Brother. The firm was active in the development of railroads in the western United States, several of which Thayer was a director. The firm was also involved with other enterprises such as manufacturing which required large amounts of capital. Thayer became senior director of the firm on the death of his brother in 1857. He gradually acquired a large fortune. He was known as the “honest banker” because he sold money at the legal rate unlike most, for the time. In 1865 Nathaniel Thayer II retired, sold his business to his partners and lived primarily in The Homestead for “he preferred the woods and fields to the streets and crowds”. He then lived in Lancaster with his wife Cornelia Van Rensselaer Thayer until his death in 1883.

Philanthropy

He was a fellow of Harvard in 1868-1875, and one of its largest benefactors. He contributed to a commons hall, erected Thayer Hall in 1870 as a memorial of his father and brother, bore the expenses of

Louis Agassiz Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history. Spending his early life in Switzerland, he rec ...

's 1865-66 expedition to South America (known as the Thayer Expedition; which his son Stephen Van Rensselaer Thayer also joined as a research assistant), built a fire-proof

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (calle ...

at the botanic garden, and gave much in aid of poor students of the college. He was one of the most generous citizens of Boston.

Personal life

He married Cornelia Paterson Van Rensselaer (1823–1897), daughter of Stephen Van Rensselaer IV, in 1846. Together, they had seven children: * Stephen Van Rensselaer Thayer (1847–1871) * Cornelia Van Rensselaer Thayer (1849–1903), who married

J. Hampden Robb James Hampden Robb (October 27, 1846 – January 21, 1911) was an American merchant and politician from New York. Life Robb was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 27, 1846. He was the son of James Robb, a New Orleans banker and avid ...

(1846–1911) in 1868. * Nathaniel Thayer III (1851–1911) * Harriet Van Rensselaer Thayer (1853–1891) * Eugene Van Rensselaer Thayer (1855–1907) * Bayard Thayer (1862–1916), a yachtsman and horticulturalist who married Ruth Simpkins (1864–1941). * John Eliot Thayer (1862–1933), an amateur

who married Evelyn Duncan Forbes. Although Nathaniel Thayer II lived in Boston for many years, he always regarded himself as belonging to Lancaster. He is quoted as saying "Lancaster is my greatest monument."

Descendants

His granddaughter, Cornelia Van Rensselaer Thayer (b. 1881) married Danish Count Carl Moltke (1869–1935) in 1907. The family lived in that house along with their other two houses, one in Boston and the other in Newport RI called The Edgemere.

Honors and memberships

Elected a member of the

American Antiquarian Society The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and a national research library of pre-twentieth-century American history and culture. Founded in 1812, it is the oldest historical society in ...

in 1866.American Antiquarian Society Members Directory
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References

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