Nathaniel Thayer, Jr.

Nathaniel Thayer

Signature

Nathaniel Thayer (Lancaster, Massachusetts, 11 September 1808 – Boston, 7 March 1883) was a United States financier and philanthropist.

Biography

He was the son of Nathaniel Thayer, a Unitarian congregational minister of Lancaster, Massachusetts. He was educated in an academy in Lancaster.^[1]

Banking

For many years, Thayer was a member, with his brother, of the firm of John E. Thayer and Brother, a banking house in Boston. The firm was active in the development of railroads in the western United States, several of which Thayer was a director.^[1] 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.

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's expedition to South America (which was known as the Thayer Expedition), built a fire-proof herbarium 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.^[1]

Family

He married Cornelia Paterson in 1846. They had seven children. One of their children became a noted ornithologist John Thayer (ornithologist).

Notes

1 2 3 Wilson & Fiske 1889, p. 73.

References

Gunn, Sidney (1936). "Thayer, Nathaniel". Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1889). "Thayer, Nathaniel". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography 6. New York: D. Appleton. p. 73.