Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/92

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THACHER
THATCHER

some Churches" (Boston, 1783), and "Memoirs of Dr. Boylston" (1789).—Thomas, another son of Oxenbridge, b. in Boston, Mass., 24 Oct., 1756; d. in Dedham, Mass., 19 Oct., 1812, was graduated at Harvard in 1775, and ordained minister of the 3d church in Dedham, 7 June, 1780. In 1788 he was elected a member of the convention that ratified the Federal constitution, of which he was an earnest supporter. He was a member of the Academy of arts and sciences, and published several discourses between 1804 and 1811.—The second Peter's son, Samuel Cooper, clergyman, b. in Boston, Mass., 14 Dec, 1785; d. in Moulins, France, 2 Jan., 1818, was graduated at Harvard in 1804, and began his preparation for the ministry under William Ellery Channing. In 1805 he acted for a time as head-master of the Boston Latin-school, and he subsequently conducted a private school of his own. In 1807 he was appointed librarian of Harvard, entering on the duties of the office in the following year. He was ordained and installed minister of the New South church (Unitarian), at Boston, on 15 May, 1811, but his health failed rapidly, and in 1815 he went to England, where he was advised to winter in the Cape of Good Hope. He resided for some time at Cape Town, but his health improved very slowly, and he returned to England and subsequently went to the south of France, where he died. Dr. Thacher was a member of the Anthology club, and he published articles in nearly all the volumes of its magazine, the "Monthly Anthology." Many of his lectures and sermons were devoted to the exposition of the Unitarian system, and were considered to embody a more vigorous and formal defence of Unitarianism than any that had appeared previously. His works are "Apology for Rational and Evangelican Christianity" (Boston, 1815); "Unity of God" (Liverpool, 1810; Worcester, Mass., 1817); "Sermons, with a Memoir by Rev. Francis W. P. Greenwood" (Boston, 1824); and "Evidences necessary to establish the Doctrine of the Trinity" (1828). He also published a volume of sermons of Rev. Joseph S. Buckminster, to which he prefixed a memoir (1814).—Samuel Cooper's brother, Thomas Cushing (1771-1837), was graduated from Harvard in 1790, and was pastor at Lynn in 1794-1813. He published "Eulogy on Washington" (Boston, 1800), and sermons (1794-1801).—The first Thomas's grandson, Peter, clergyman, b. in Boston, Mass., in 1677; d. there, 26 Feb., 1738, was graduated at Harvard in 1696, and for some time afterward taught at Hatfield, Mass. He was ordained pastor of the church at Weymouth on 26 Nov., 1707, where he remained until 1720, when he was called to the pastorate of the New North church, Boston. He was a noted preacher, and published several sermons, etc., between 1711 and 1730.


THACHER, Thomas Antony, educator, b. in Hartford, Conn., 11 Jan., 1815; d. in New Haven, Conn., 7 April, 1886. He was graduated at Yale in 1835, and after teaching for three years in Connecticut and Georgia was appointed tutor there in 1838, and professor of Latin in 1842, which post he retained to the end of his life. He went to Germany in the following year, and for some time taught English to the crown prince of Prussia and his cousin, Prince Frederick Charles. He returned in 1845, and, although often in feeble health, was actively interested in the management of Yale until his death, at which time he was the member of the faculty that had been longest in continuous service. He was a fine classical scholar, and contributed many articles to periodicals on classical subjects, especially to the "New Englander." He also assisted in the compilation of Webster's Dictionary. He edited many classical works, among others Cicero's "De Officiis," with notes (New York, 1850), and an English translation and adaptation of Madvig's "Latin Grammar," which was long in use at Yale. In his introduction to this work he earnestly upholds the English system of pronouncing Latin. He also wrote "Sketch of the Life of Edward C. Herrick" (New Haven, 1862).


THARIN, Robert Seymour Symmes (tharin). lawyer, b. at Magnolia, near Charleston, S. C, 10 Jan., 1830. The family-seat at Magnolia was also the birthplace of Robert's father, William Cunnington Tharin. grandson of its founder, Col. William Cunnington, an officer on Gen. Francis Marion's staff. Robert was graduated at the College of Charleston in 1857 and at the law-school of the University of New York in 1863. He began practice in Wetumpka, Ala., in 1859. During the political excitement of this time, he became known for his Union sentiments and his sympathy with non-slaveholders. He advocated the establishment of small farms and factories, the emigration of the blacks to Africa, the representation of non-slaveholders, who were in the majority, in legislatures, conventions, and congress, and the repeal of the ordinance of secession. His Union sentiments led to an attack on him by a mob in 1861, and he fled to Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Tharin then settled in Richmond, Ind., and enlisted as a private in the Indiana volunteers, but was mustered out in 1862. While he was in the service he wrote a letter to the London "Daily News," denouncing his former law-partner, William L. Yancey, who was then commissioner from the southern Confederacy to England. This letter, Mr. Yancey afterward confessed, was worth an army corps to the Union, as it defeated recognition. He returned to the south after the war, and in 1884 was corporation counsel of Charleston, S. C. In February, 1888, he was tendered, by the Industrial conference at Washington, a nomination for president of the United States, but declined on the ground that the body was not a convention, and that presidential conventions are dangerous to the people who are not represented therein. He is now employed in the auditor's office in Washington. He is the author of "Arbitrary Arrests in the South" (New York, 1863), and "Letters on the Political Situation " (Charleston, S. C, 1871).


THATCHER, Benjamin Bussey, author, b. in Warren, Me., 8 Oct., 1809; d. in Boston, 14 July, 1840. His father, Samuel, a graduate of Harvard in 1793 and a lawyer, represented Massachusetts in congress in 1802-'5, serving afterward eleven years in the legislature. He was a trustee of Harvard and a founder of Warren academy. The son, upon his graduation at Bowdoin in 1826, studied law and was admitted to the bar in Boston, but devoted himself to literature. In 1836-'8 he travelled in Europe for his health, contributing during the time to British and American periodicals. He wrote for the "North American Review" in 1831, and contributed to the "Essayist" several critiques on American poets which attracted notice. He edited the "Boston Book" in 1837, the "Colonizationist," a periodical in the interests of the Liberian cause, which he further aided by eloquent speeches, and a volume of Mrs. Hemans's poems, to which he contributed a preface. He left in manuscript an account of his residence in Europe. His poems, some of which are in Griswold's "Poets and Poetry of America" (1842), and his reviews and essays, have never been collected. He published "Biography of North American Indians" (2 vols., New