The journal of the American-Irish Historical Society, Vol. VIII, 1909

by Various

HON. ELI THAYER, ONE OF THE EARLY MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN IRISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY. A MOST DISTINGUISHED AMERICAN, KNOWN THE WORLD OVER. A FEW FACTS ABOUT HIS LIFE AND WORK.

BY THE SECRETARY-GENERAL.

Hon. Eli Thayer was born in the town of Mendon, in the state of Massachusetts, June 11, 1819, and deceased at Worcester, in that state, April 15, 1899, aged eighty years.

He was elected a member of the American Irish Historical Society in 1897, shortly after its first meeting, and was an active and interested member at the time of his death.

Mr. Thayer was a descendant in the seventh generation from Thomas Thayer and seventh in descent from John Alden of Mayflower fame, through Ruth, daughter of Rev. Noah Alden of Bellingham, Mass., who married his grandfather, Benjamin Thayer. John Alden was an Irishman and Thomas Thayer was Irish on the side of one of his parents.

He was the eldest of eight children. He received his early education in the district schools of Mendon, and at the Bellingham High School. Later he attended the academy at Amherst and the manual training school at Worcester, afterwards the Worcester Academy. He always ranked high in his scholarship, and in 1835–’36 taught school in Douglass, and for the four succeeding years assisted his father in a country store at Millville. In May, 1840, he re-entered the manual labor school, in order to fit for Brown University. Two years later he taught school at Hopkinton, Rhode Island, and while there was elected a member of the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity, an honor seldom conferred before the senior year.

In September, 1844, the superintendent of schools in Providence, Nathan Bishop, induced him to take charge of the boys’ high school for the remainder of the year for $600, a large salary for that period. This school had proven for some time unmanageable in the hands of several masters, but he reduced it to order and subjection. By accepting this position, he lost a year at Brown University, but was able to graduate in 1845, the second in his class. After his graduation, he immediately came to Worcester and became a teacher at the Academy, and was later its principal.

In 1845 he purchased of John Jaques four acres and ninety rods of land in Worcester, on what was then called Goat Hill. In 1848 he began the erection of the building called the Oread, which was completed in 1852. It is built of the stone underlying the hill. At first only the north tower was completed, and it was in this portion of the building that he established the famous school for young women, which he conducted with great success until he entered upon his later political work.

At the time that the school was opened, it was the only institute in the country that promised a full college course for women. It was the forerunner of Vassar, Smith and Wellesley. The name Oread means “the abode of the mountain nymphs.” The south tower was completed in 1850, and the connecting portion of the building a year or two later.

The towers are 40 feet in diameter and four stories high, while the entire length of the building is 250 feet. It was constructed after designs entirely Mr. Thayer’s own, without the aid of an architect, and the beauty of the building and the charming location have been remarked by strangers from all over the country.

He entered political life in 1852, when he was elected a member of the school board. Later he was a member of the board of aldermen and served during the years of 1853–’54 in the state legislature. It was during his first year in the state House of Representatives that he became conspicuous by the introduction of a bill to incorporate the Bank of Mutual Redemption, which was hailed with delight by bankers and monied men throughout the state, as it seemed to afford a means of release from the autocratic rule of the Suffolk Bank of Boston.

This bill was passed in the course of years and the Bank of Mutual Redemption loaned the money to the government when Andrew was governor during the Civil War.

It was not, however, until 1854 that Mr. Thayer accomplished the great act of his life, the one which enrolls his name among the benefactors of mankind, in originating the plan which saved Kansas and other territories to the Union and perhaps settled the destiny of the nation, for if the southern leaders had secured the territories, it would have given them the balance of power for many years to come and there would have been no rebellion. The North would have acquiesced, as it always had, in the decision of the congressional majority. In his original idea of making Kansas free, he actually settled the destinies of the country.

It was at a meeting to protest against the repeal of the Missouri compromise, held in the old city hall on the evening of March 11, 1854, that Mr. Thayer announced his celebrated “plan of freedom.” In effect it was simply to take possession by lawful means of the new territories through organized immigration of free-state men sustained by a base of supplies.

Mr. Thayer defined this plan as “business anti-slavery,” distinguished from sentimental and political anti-slavery, both of which had been tried for many years and found to be faulty, slavery in the meantime constantly growing stronger. He clearly saw that whichever side gained the majority of the settlers would control the situations of the new section, in spite of all efforts to establish others among them, and to the purpose of securing this majority for freedom he devoted all his energies and all of his means until that end was accomplished.

As the first means toward fortifying himself for this undertaking he immediately secured the passage of an act to incorporate the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company and before the vote to repeal the Missouri compromise was taken, hired a hall in Boston and began to speak afternoon and evening in behalf of his undertaking.

The intense excitement and strong opposition which followed the first announcement of the purpose to repeal the compromise in a great measure subsided after that act was accomplished, and he found extreme difficulty in the succeeding months in persuading a sufficient number of men to join in his enterprise to form the first colony.

The Know-Nothing frenzy absorbed the public mind so fully that other considerations were almost entirely excluded, and the Free Soil vote of 1854 dwindled to a few thousands, the Republican candidate for governor himself deserting his party and voting with the native Americans. The Know-Nothing organization had controlled the state for three years, and the frenzy had seized the public mind to such an extent that no man who aspired to public office had a chance of election unless he was affiliated with that party.

Every member of Congress belonged to it, and it has been commonly said that Henry Wilson and other prominent office-holders of that time were elected upon that platform. The national Know-Nothing party did not agitate the slavery question, but maintained that Congress ought not to legislate on the question of slavery, which was regulated by the statutes of the various states.

In 1856 the Republicans of the Massachusetts congressional district in which Worcester is situated came to the front, but, feeling that they stood no show of winning at the pending elections, made alliances with the Know-Nothing party, whereby the offices were to be divided, and Col. Alexander Dewitt made an agreement with Henry Chapin that he would not run against him. At the last moment, however, Governor Gardiner sent word that he must make the run against Chapin. It was at this crisis that Charles White, a party manager, nominated Eli Thayer for Congress, and took a carriage and went to the Oread to notify him of his nomination.

Mr. Thayer was warmly greeted in the convention and, although it was but five days before the election, he announced his determination to stump the district and called for means of transportation to the various towns and villages. During the five days he made on an average four speeches a day. At the close of the campaign Dr. Joseph Sargent said to Mr. Thayer that no man could do what he had done and live, but he replied that he was prepared to undertake the same ordeal again in the same cause.

During this campaign he would speak at Clinton in the morning, at Leominster at noon, at Ashburnham in the afternoon and at Fitchburg in the evening, and it was in this way that he covered the entire Worcester district in the short space of five days. The result of this bitter contest was most gratifying to Mr. Thayer, who won by a vote of nearly two to one. The election was in November, 1856, but Mr. Thayer did not take his seat until the December of the following year.

At this time a new matter was interesting the southern members—the retention of the state of Kansas in the Democratic column. The notable southern propagandists, of which Quitman of Mississippi was the representative, had, in order to amend the neutrality laws, put on foot a scheme for the unification of Mexico, Cuba and Central America and the formation of an immense slave empire. This was regarded by the northern representatives with a great deal of apprehension, but much to the surprise of everyone Mr. Thayer came out in favor of it.

MR. WILLIAM J. FARRELL.
Of New York.
A New Life Member of the Society.

He said to the southern leaders that he intended to colonize this new empire with New England Yankees. His speeches on Central American colonization, on the “Suicide of Slavery,” and on the “Admission of Oregon” brought him great fame. Against the caucus decision of his own party he secured the admission of Oregon into the Union, and in this act, though in opposition to partisan dictation, he was sustained by leading Republican organs throughout the country, although he received some censure in his own district.

Soon after these speeches his political enemies in the district began to organize against him, but his popularity was not to be overcome and he was returned with a flattering endorsement. During his second term in Congress he was instrumental in the admission of Oregon as a state to statehood. The Republicans were of the opinion that the admission of Oregon into the Union would mean heavier Democratic representation. Mr. Thayer, however, argued that the best way to make Oregon a Republican state would be to admit it into the Union. Succeeding events proved that his view of the matter was correct, but at the time the Republicans in the House opposed the admission.

Mr. Thayer, during the discussion of the bill, went to Alexander H. Stephens, then chairman of the Committee on Territories of the House, and told him that he should work for the passage of the bill and it was to his everlasting credit that Oregon was admitted to the Union by a majority of eleven votes, of which fourteen had been won over by the untiring efforts of Mr. Thayer.

He was assailed at home for his stand in this matter, as his constituents considered that he had voted for a measure which provided for the admission of a state whose constitution excluded the negro from all political rights. As a direct result of his stand in this matter, the district failed to send him as a delegate to the national convention in 1860, which placed in nomination Abraham Lincoln for the presidency.

Together with Horace Greeley, however, he was a member of the convention, representing Oregon, the state for whose admission he had so earnestly worked, and whose people appreciated his services in its behalf. He worked with Greeley for the nomination of Lincoln in a convention which was replete with startling incidents, not the least of which was the motion of Joshua R. Giddings, aiming at the admission of a clause in the platform providing that all men are free and equal.

On account of this outspoken stand in several important measures, it was apparent to Mr. Thayer that he would fail of a renomination, and in the spring of 1860 he announced himself as an independent Republican candidate. As the campaign developed, a candidate in opposition to Mr. Thayer was found in the person of Goldsmith F. Bailey of Fitchburg, but no speaker in the state could be found who was willing to meet the arguments on important questions advanced by Mr. Thayer. Such men as Henry Wilson and Charles Sumner refused to meet him on the stump in joint debate, and he was obliged to fight it out alone. The result was that he was defeated by a very small majority. So great was his popularity throughout the country during his second term that he was prominently spoken of as a possible senator from Massachusetts.

Bailey, who defeated him for Congress, was in advanced stages of consumption when he was nominated and was unable to take the stump against Mr. Thayer. The voters of Worcester at last became so vigorous in their demands to see the candidate that to quiet them a meeting was arranged at which he was to be presented to them from the platform. When Bailey arrived in the city he was such a haggard and ghastly spectacle that it was feared by the party managers that if seen by the voters as he was, it would make votes for Thayer.

It is maintained by those who seem to know that Bailey was taken into George R. Spear’s drug store before the meeting. There his face was painted and touched up with cosmetics until he looked like a thing of life instead of a specter. He sat in Congress but one day, and then returned to his home and died.

In 1856 Mr. Thayer originated a southern colonization scheme, which had for its object the settling of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and the border states and driving the slaves toward the Gulf. He enlisted the services of James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald, and William Cullen Bryant of the New York Evening Post in his project. He went South at the head of the colonists and founded the town of Ceredo in Virginia, now a sizable place.

At the time he was charged by the Southerners with coming down into the South to interfere with slavery, but he and his colonists disclaimed any such purpose, saying that he neither intended to interfere nor have any part in the slavery movement. He said further that he could support the negro power and a steam engine for $10 a year, while it was costing the southern slaveholders $150 a year, and that at the time he came into Virginia land was worth but 50 cents to $1.50 an acre, but that his free settlement had made it worth $50 an acre.

A man named Jenkins, afterwards a rebel officer, appealed to Gov. Henry A. Wise to exterminate this colony of abolitionists, but the governor said that they came into the state in a peaceful way and that anything which tended to increase the wealth should be protected. Considerable progress with the colonization scheme was made in other states, especially in North Carolina, but the John Brown raid and the opening of the rebellion brought the enterprise to an end. After the war Charles B. Hoard, a member of Congress with Mr. Thayer, came into possession of the property at Ceredo. The project caused Mr. Thayer a loss of $118,000.

Mr. Thayer was appointed a special and confidential agent of the treasury department and served as such in 1861–’62. In 1862 he proposed to Secretary Stanton a plan for the military colonization of Florida, which was approved by President Lincoln, all of the members of the president’s cabinet excepting Seward, and by nearly every Republican member of Congress, as well as by Generals Hunter, Hooker and Garfield. According to the plan, Mr. Thayer was to go as military governor and General Garfield as commander of the forces.

This plan was under consideration for several months by the president’s cabinet and was sustained by great meetings in New York City and Brooklyn by such speakers as William Cullen Bryant and Cassius M. Clay and others of equal note. Capitalists came forward with offers of steamships, and other means and regiments were offered from several of the states, but, like other notable plans which were never carried out, this plan was prevented from being put into operation by exigencies of the times.

He remained with the Republican party until the impeachment of President Johnson. He was a Democratic candidate for Congress in this district in 1874, and also later, in the first instance nearly defeating Senator George F. Hoar, reducing the Republican majority from 7,000 to 300.

He was interested in the solution of the polygamy question in Utah, and, in connection with such men as Amos A. Lawrence, Edward Everett Hale and other members of the old Emigrant Aid Society, was concerned with plans for the elimination of the evil by the principle formerly put into force in Kansas. In recent years he has written much of history, illustrating his life work and the principles which have governed his actions in political and philanthropic work. He kept fully abreast of the times, with a keen interest in current events, and was always in sympathy with genuine progress.

Mr. Thayer was engaged after leaving Congress by the Hanibal and St. Joe Railroad Company, at a very large salary, to act as its land agent in New York City. He was there from about 1864 until 1870. He was also an expert in matters of invention, acting as a referee in such cases, for which he received large sums. He studied law, but was never admitted to the bar.

During the war time he originated a plan for the establishment of a great port of entry on the peninsular between the York and the James rivers in Virginia, and obtained a bond for a deed of the land. He considered the natural advantages of that locality a rival to New York. His plan, however, was divulged to certain heavy capitalists in New York, and they by some means obtained possession of the property and frustrated his scheme. He said he would have carried the thing through had he obtained the land, but the capitalists undertook it and failed.

He had a very keen sense of humor and a sharp wit. It was most amusing of itself to hear him tell humorous stories and preserve his grim countenance from the suspicion of a smile.

Mr. Thayer took the initiative in developing the south end of Worcester for manufacturing by erecting, more than fifty years ago, the building formerly known as the Adriatic mills on Southgate Street. He was influential in the erection of the junction shop formerly the property of the late Col. James Estabrook, and for many years occupied by the Knowles loom works on Jackson Street. This building, like the Oread Institute, was constructed of the stone taken from Oread Hill. He laid out and improved several streets and tracts of land in the vicinity of the Oread and had under consideration at the time of his death the opening up of a large area on the summit of Pakachoag Hill, at the rear of Holy Cross College.

He was the last surviving member of the Emigrant Aid Society, director of the Mutual Redemption Bank, member of the Worcester Society of Antiquity and the American Irish Historical Society. Belonging to no clubs, he was essentially a home man. Throughout the country he was familiarly known as the “Father of Kansas.”

He was married in 1846 to Cardina M. Capron of Millville, Mass., and seven children were born as a result of the union.