Eli Thayer
Eli Thayer | |
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Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's 9th district | |
In office March 4, 1857 – March 3, 1861 | |
Preceded by | Alexander De Witt |
Succeeded by | Goldsmith Bailey |
Personal details | |
Born | Mendon, Massachusetts | June 11, 1819
Died | April 15, 1899 Worcester, Massachusetts | (aged 79)
Resting place | Hope Cemetery |
Political party | Whig[1] Republican Party |
Children | John A. Thayer, Clara Thayer (Mrs. Charles H. Perry M.D.), Ida M. Thayer.[2] |
Alma mater | Worcester Academy, 1840; Brown University, 1845 |
Signature | ![]() |
Eli Thayer (June 11, 1819 – April 15, 1899) was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1857 to 1861. He was born in Mendon, Massachusetts. He graduated from Worcester Academy in 1840, from Brown University in 1845, and in 1848 founded Oread Institute, a school for young women in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is buried at Hope Cemetery, Worcester.
He is chiefly remembered for his crusade to ensure that the Kansas Territory would enter into the United States as a free state. With this aim in view, early in 1854 Thayer organized the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company to send anti-slavery settlers to the Kansas Territory. In 1855, this organization joined with the New York Emigrant Aid Company and the name was changed to the New England Emigrant Aid Company.[citation needed] The motives of Thayer in establishing the New England Emigrant Aid Company were questioned by historian David S. Reynolds, who wrote that Thayer "opposed slavery not on moral grounds but because [he] wanted to foster laissez-faire capitalism in the Territory."[3]
Local leagues were established whose members emigrated to Kansas and established towns. The Company provided hotels for temporary accommodation (such as the Free State Hotel in Lawrence) and provided sawmills and other improvements. Settlements were established at Manhattan, Lawrence, Topeka, and Osawatomie. The clash of these settlers and other "Free-Stater" Northerners with pro-slavery settlers spawned the violence of Bleeding Kansas.[citation needed]
Thayer wanted to establish an antislavery colony in Virginia, but land was too expensive. He then looked to western Virginia. Thayer chose to build his colony at the mouth of Twelvepole Creek in Wayne County, Virginia (now West Virginia). He named his town Ceredo after the goddess Ceres. The town was founded in 1857.[4]
He enlisted fellow abolitionist Zopher D. Ramsdell to settle there and establish a boot and shoe factory.[5] Ramsdell's house is open (2022) as a historic house museum.
Eli Thayer died at his home in Worcester on April 15, 1899.[6]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Portrait_of_Eli_Thayer.jpg/220px-Portrait_of_Eli_Thayer.jpg)
Books by Thayer
[edit]- Thayer, Eli (1860). Six speeches, with a sketch of the life of Hon. Eli Thayer. Boston: Brown and Taggard.
- Thayer, Eli (1887). The New England Emigrant Aid Company, and its influence, through the Kansas contest, upon national history. Worcester, Massachusetts: F. P. Rice.
- Thayer, Eli (1889). A history of the Kansas crusade, its friends and its foes. Introduction by Rev. Edward Everett Hale. New York: Harper & Brothers.
References
[edit]- ^ Butler, Randall (August 1973). "The New England Emigrant Aid Company and the response in Massachusetts to its goals and efforts to create a free Kansas, 1854-1856".
- ^ "Sisters Run Down by Auto. Mrs. Clara Thayer Perry Dead, Miss Ida M. Thayer Dying". The New York Times. Worcester, Massachusetts. September 18, 1914. p. 5. Retrieved May 29, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Reynolds, David S. (2005). John Brown, abolitionist : the man who killed slavery, sparked the Civil War, and seeded civil rights. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0375726152.
- ^ Napier, Mose A. (1989). Ceredo : it's [sic] founders and families. Ceredo, West Virginia: Phoenix Systems. OCLC 23890889.
- ^ "National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form: Z. D. Ramsdell House" (PDF). State of West Virginia, West Virginia Division of Culture and History, Historic Preservation. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016. Retrieved July 9, 2011.
- ^ "Eli Thayer Dead". Brooklyn Eagle. Worcester, Massachusetts. April 16, 1899. p. 72. Retrieved May 29, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
External links
[edit]- "Ramsdell House Civil War Home & Museum". Archived from the original on May 25, 2021. Retrieved February 25, 2022.
- United States Congress. "Eli Thayer (id: T000145)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
- 1819 births
- 1899 deaths
- Bleeding Kansas
- Worcester Academy alumni
- Politicians from Worcester, Massachusetts
- People from Mendon, Massachusetts
- American abolitionists
- Brown University alumni
- Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts
- 19th-century American legislators
- Burials at Hope Cemetery (Worcester, Massachusetts)