440 NATHANIEL THAYER. 



Nathaniel Thayer was one among the more munificent benefactors 

 of Harvard College who chose to bestow their valued gifts during 

 their own lifetime, having the privilege of witnessing the good uses 

 which they serve. While Mr. Thayer's generosity has its evidences 

 on the subscription papers and donation books of all our multiplied 

 institutions and agencies of science, art, culture, mercy, and charity, 

 his direct benefactions to Harvard University, represented by buildings, 

 endowments, and permanent deposits, exceed a quarter of a million 

 dollars, and include his expenditures on " Thayer Hall," " Thayer 

 Commons Hall," " Gray Herbarium," the " Thayer Expedition," etc. 

 This gross sum is in addition to a considerable amount which for a 

 lou<>- series of years, through channels of his own choosing, he has dis- 

 tributed as pecuniary aid to students in the College, and to scholars in 

 preparation for it. 



Thayer Hall, erected in 1870, and whose full cost exceeded a hun- 

 dred thousand dollars, was designed by him as a memorial gift com- 

 memorative of his father, Rev. Nathaniel Thayer, D. D., and of his 

 brother, John Eliot Thayer. 



His father, Rev. Dr. Thayer, was the honored and revered minister 

 of tlie beautiful town of Lancaster, in the fair valley of the Nashua, for 

 nearly half a century. Whatever changes necessity or expediency in 

 time to come may introduce in modifying the obligations and relations 

 of Harvard College to the supply of ministers for the churches, it may 

 be claimed that it has, for at least two centuries, answered fully to the 

 intent and pledge of its first planting by a twofold recognition of its 

 responsibility in this direction, and of a large return of gratitude for 

 its services. It has furnished the churches of New Eno;land with a 

 succession of faithful Christian ministers ; and it has received from 

 the sons of such ministers many of its most devoted and esteemed 

 officers and instructors, and many of its most liberal endowments. 

 Quite a consideralile list might be made of the sons of country minis- 

 ters — some of them, like their fathers, alumni of Harvard, and others 

 wlio had not enjoyed that privilege — who have spent their lives in the 

 service of the institution, or who have left there generous deposits of 

 the wealth accpiired in professional or mercantile life. Di-. Thayer of 

 Lancaster — himself the son of a country minister who had graduated 

 at Harvard in 17.33, and a lineal descendant on the maternal side of 

 the famous John Cotton of the old and the new Boston — was a class- 

 mate and life-long friend of President Kirkland, of the class of 1789. 

 In dignity, and in the graces and virtues of character, he was one of 

 the best examples of that class of ministers to whom all our old vil- 



