Sylvanus Thayer (1785 - 1872)

Born 6 Jun 1785 in Braintree, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States

Ancestors

Died 7 Sep 1872 at age 87 in Braintree, Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States

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Biography

West Point Class of 1808.

Thayer had already graduated from Dartmouth College before attending West Point. Commissioned in the Corps of Engineers, he worked on coastal fortifications in New York and New England. He served as a staff officer in the War of 1812, rising from second lieutenant to major.

After the war, Thayer embarked on a two-year inspection tour of European military schools and installations, returning in 1817 to become superintendent at West Point. The educational and administrative reforms he initiated during his sixteen-year tenure created a preeminent school of engineering, making him remembered ever after as “the father of the Military Academy.”

Thayer resigned as superintendent in 1833 but remained an army engineer, working on harbor improvements in New England. He retired in 1863 with the rank of brigadier general. In 1867 the lifelong bachelor endowed the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College and designed the new school’s curriculum.

Sylvanus never married and had no children.

Sources

• http://americanhistory.si.edu
• Wikidata: Item Q2374046, en:Wikipedia
• "Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N7G2-1HS : accessed 13 May 2016), Gen. Sylvanus Thayer, 07 Sep 1872; citing Braintree, Massachusetts, v 248 p 296, State Archives, Boston; FHL microfilm 960,200.