The town was one of the oldest in Worcester County. In every generation it had contained men of large influence in the Commonwealth, who had kept alive the interest of the people in public affairs. Jonathan Russell, who, with Adams, Bayard, Clay and Gallatin, negotiated the treaty of Ghent, and who met rather an ignominious defeat afterward in an attempt to measure lances with John Quincy Adams; the Hastings family, three of whom were eminent lawyers, two of them having represented the district in Congress; were of a generation that passed from the stage at about the time of Judge Thayer's birth.
The people were fond of discussing public questions, not only in town meeting, but in neighborhood gatherings and debating societies. The Judge used often to tell of the eager interest with which in his boyhood he listened to these encounters. There were two men, one of whom survived until Judge Thayer came to manhood, the other of whom died recently in an honored old age, who were less known abroad than those I have named, but who exerted a powerful influence upon the community and upon the character of the observant and impressible boy. One of them was Dan Hill, the other the Reverend Adin Ballou.
Dan Hill was one of the most remarkable men Worcester County ever contained. He was not bred to the bar, and was without the advantage of what is called a liberal education. But he had a wonderful aptness for understanding legal principles and the weight and effect of evidence. His neighbors when in trouble instinctively sought him as a shield. He was an unerring counsellor in the conduct of complicated affairs. His aid was extensively sought in the preparation of causes, in settling estates, and as guardian and trustee. He was concerned in hundreds of cases. It would be hard to name one in which he had anything to do that did not terminate to the advantage of the party who employed him. He had none of the arts of the pettifogger. He cared little for his own personal advantage. He had a native and lofty scorn for dishonesty and meanness. He was never better pleased than when, without prospect of gain for himself, he was employing his talents in the protection of poor and honest men against fraud and oppression. He had a large public spirit. He was early an anti-slavery man, and one of the founders of the Free Soil Party. He was specially at home in the Mendon and Blackstone town meetings, in the meetings of the school district, in the caucus, in the temperance and anti-slavery meetings and other neighborhood gatherings where the people discussed matters which concerned the public welfare. In all these he gave sensible counsel in common affairs and high counsel in high affairs.
The influence of Adin Ballou, of whom Judge Thayer delighted to speak in his later years, may be traced in the strong sympathy the Judge always showed for aspirations, although exhibited in the most crude and grotesque fashion, for the reconstruction of society according to the laws of a newer and more spiritual life. Mr. Ballou, a man of clear intellect, stainless life, sweet and amiable temper, undertook with about thirty companions and disciples to form a community which should have the Beatitudes for constitution, charter and by-laws. This community was established at Hopedale, now a separate town, then part of Milford, formerly part of Mendon. Some of the most important members of this body withdrew from it, doubting its ability to maintain itself financially, and it was abandoned. But if its sweet and gracious influence on the social life in its neighborhood be any measure of its success, it was highly successful.
Hopedale became famous afterward as the dwelling-place of George Draper, one of the most eminent manufacturers and sagacious and public-spirited citizens—founder of the Home Market Club— the reputation and honor of whose name has been still more extended by his sons, the eldest of whom is the admirable soldier, Representative to Congress and Minister to Italy, General William F. Draper.
Judge Thayer was named for Adin Ballou, although he afterward dropped the middle name. Mr. Ballou gives his estimate of his namesake in the following letter:
HOPEDALE, MASS., Aug. 20, 1888.
HON. GEORGE F. HOAR,—
My Dear Sir,—
Your lines of 11th inst. were duly received. I am very glad to learn that a Biography of Hon. Adin Thayer is in process of preparation, and that the work is in such competent hands. I reckoned him among my highly esteemed personal friends, and was painfully shocked by the news of his lamentable death. I knew his grandfather before him, his father and mother, and the whole family connexion more or less intimately. They were often attendant on my public ministrations, and I have been with them, during my long life, on many occasions of interest, joy and sorrow. They have all been persons of strong common sense, downright honesty and solid worth. Judge Thayer descended from a sturdy, intelligent and respectable yeoman stock. And he has honored his heredity by his own intellectual and moral excellence. Although my personal intimacy with him has never been close enough to enable me to describe the footsteps of his upward career with graphical exactness, or to enrich my memory with interesting anecdotes, I can bear witness in a general way to his good characteristics, especially in his youth while he was nearest under my observation, and to some extent those of his mature years. He was an industrious, affectionate, and dutiful son from childhood to maturity. He evinced early intelligence, rationality and moral principle of a superior type, availing himself by close application of every opportunity for acquiring useful knowledge, and did so, as the sequel proved, successfully. He was always an independent, acute and logical thinker on a wide range of subjects, as well outside of his professional life as inside. But his constitution practically confined his ambition and pursuits to the state of the world's affairs as manageable for the time being, rather than to expending his energies for the realization of theories greatly in advance of current public opinion. In this respect he differed from his friend who writes this graphic contribution; whom nevertheless he always respected. But he was by no means a fossil conservative lagging in the rear of progress. He marched just as far forward in the column as he was sure it could command the ground. Thus he espoused the anti-slavery movement in politics in its germinal stage, and became one of the most sagacious and efficient organizers of the Republican Party in his native State. Of this, however, others are better qualified to treat than this friend. The same is true of his pecuniary and financial achievements; also of his legal, judicial and official attainments. Let abler pens in those departments eulogise him. Whatever this writer saw of him in the judicial chair or legal forum was unexceptionably creditable to him.
On the great themes of theology his conceptions and beliefs accorded mainly with those of the writer. They were sublimely liberal and regenerative, excluding all notions of the divine attributes and government in the least degree derogatory to the character of God as the Supreme, All-Perfect Father of the Universe.