USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Braintree > Brief history of the town of Braintree in Massachusetts, prepared for the observance of the tercentenary celebration of its founding, 1640-1940 > Part 4
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5. Ibid., 1793-1820, I, p. 414, June 7, 1819
6. Laws, 1825-1828, ch. 3
7. Ibid., ch. 79
8. Incorporated Jan. 26, 1829; Ibid., 1828-31, ch. 38
9. Braintree Town Records, 1820-1843, p. 184, Mar. 1, 1830
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the per capita expenditure increased from $1.76 to $7.37.1 Meanwhile the town decided in 1857 to open a high school in the new town hall.2 This school absorbed the pupils of the Hollis Institute, which had to some extent fulfilled the functions of a high school in the town.3 From the close of the Civil War until the present time the history of Brain- tree schools has been that of the average Massachusetts town. An important event in the educational progress of the town was its acceptance in 1875 of a bequest of $260,000 for the endowment of an academy by the will of General Sylvanus Thayer, the first commandant at West Point,4 who had before his death already endowed a free public library.5 With the appointment by the school com- mittee of a superintendent of schools in 1885,6 Braintree entered definitely upon the modern phase of its educational development. The town now has a well-organized school system, with a high school, eight grade schools, and two kindergartens, besides Thayer Academy, now a well-known private school, on a nonprofit basis. It is interesting to note, however, that the total cost of the Braintree schools in 1938 was $330,285.27.7
The particularly strong tie between schools and churches throughout New England in Provincial times, and the as- sociation with Braintree of such names as Anne Hutchinson and Thomas Hooker, lends unusual interest to the reli- gious history of the town. Wheelwright's "Chapel of Ease" was replaced by the usual Puritan "meetinghouse," and in 1707 the southern section of the town became a separate religious society with its own minister and place of worship.8
This church, known originally as the Second Church of Christ in Braintree, has continued its ministry since 1792 as the First Church in Braintree (Congregational). Dur- ing the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was served
1. Figures for 1840 taken from School Returns of Cities and Towns, mss., in basement bindery, State Library, State House, Boston ; those for 1870 from Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Board of Education, Boston, Wright and Potter, State Printers, 1871, p. Ixviii
2. Braintree Town Records, 1843-1868, p. 319, Apr. 6, 1857
3. Acts, 1850-1851, ch. 172 ; Adams, op. cit., p. 117
4. Braintree Town Records, 1869-1887, p. 152, Jan. 11, 1875
5. Ibid., p. 96, Apr. 7, 1873
6. Ibid., p. 451, Mar. 2, 1885
7. Annual Report, 1938, p. 163
8. Braintree Town Records, I, p. 91, Nov. 25, 1706
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by a most distinguished succession of three pastors whose combined ministry extended over a period of one hundred and sixty-two years. These men, The Rev. Samuel Niles (1711-1762), The Rev. Ezra Weld (1762-1811), and The Rev. Richard Salter Storrs (1811-1873) were out- standing men among their contemporaries.
For the first hundred years of the town's history re- ligious life was, in the nature of things, largely noncon- formist in its character. That there were a substantial number of Church of England residents is shown, however, by the establishment of Christ Church parish in 1689.1 The existence of this group, which was naturally Tory in its sympathies, led, at the time of the Revolution, to some natural controversy. The town voted at that time to con- demn as false and malicious a report that "a considerable Number of People in this Town had enterd into a combina- tion to disturb & harass the Revd Mr. Winslow & other members of the ch'h of England with a letter to oblidge them to leave the town . . . , We being as ready to allow that right of private judgmt to others which we claim for ourselves."2
Through the nineteenth century the churches of Braintree increased in number and diversity. The Union Church of Weymouth and Braintree (Congregational) was founded in 1811, its first meeting house having been the structure, formerly occupied by the Hollis Street Church in Boston, which was floated intact down Boston Harbor and up the Weymouth Fore River, and thence drawn up to a site facing Quincy Avenue and adjacent to the present crossing of the New Haven Railroad. The Reverend Jonas Perkins, a much loved pastor and public servant, served this church for a period of forty-six years extending from 1815 to 1861. The Reverend Lucien H. Frary, D.D., who resigned his pastoral office in 1886 to accept the presidency of Pomona College, Claremont, California; and the Reverend Oliver Huckle, a man distinguished in the field of religious literature as well as a minister of unusual ability, also served this church. The South Congregational Church was established in 1829 and names among its clergy the Reverend Charles Scott Hill
I. Adams, op. cit., p. 257
2. Braintree Town Records, II, p. 282
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Crathern, long prominent in the affairs of Braintree. The First Methodist Church in South Braintree, organized in 1874, was followed by the East Braintree Methodist Church in 1890, and the Braintree Baptist Church in 1893. The All Souls Church (Unitarian-Universalist), dating from 1900, had its forerunner in a liberal religious movement led by George A. Thayer which organized as the Braintree Free Church and held services in the Town Hall for some years between 1859 and the end of the Civil War.
With the turn of the century, the first Roman Catholic parish in Braintree was instituted, eventuating in 1903 in the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. More recently, in 1938, the Church of St. Thomas More was established in Brain- tree. The first of these churches is located in South Braintree and occupies an edifice of unusual beauty and distinctive architecture.
After ten years as a mission of the Archdeaconry of New Bedford, the Emmanuel Episcopal Church was consti- tuted in 1919, and two years later erected its building at the corner of Washington and West Streets. The Storrs Avenue Baptist Church and the First Church of Christ (Scientist ) were founded in 1926 and 1927 respectively; and in 1929 the First Baptist Church of Braintree Highlands was or- ganized by a "group of Christian people, mostly Baptists," in the southern part of the town.
The most rapid period of the town's growth was from 1910 to 1930, when the assessed value of personal prop- erty increased 53% ; of real estate 342% ; the number of persons assessed from 1,931 to 4,602; and the number of dwelling houses from 1,656 to 3,861.
Of the population of 15,712 in 1930, 81.6% or 12,820 were native white. Of the 3,841 families, 2,679 owned their own homes. A total of 3,615 homes had electric serv- ice and 2,954 had radios. Federal income tax returns were filed by 980 inhabitants of the town. Total retail sales in 1930 were $3,666,000. In that year the town, as com- pared with other cities and towns in Massachusetts ranked 49th in population, 65th in retail sales and 40th in number of income tax returns filed.1 Its bonded indebtedness was
I. E. Katz, Specialty Advertising Agency, 954 Cities, A Summary of the United States Census For All Cities of 10,000 and More, place of publication not given, 1933, pp. 8, 22, 36
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$1,435,000 in 1938, divided as follows : general, $647,000; tax anticipation notes, $450,000; schools. $316,000; water department, $12,000; all other, $10,000.1 The total in- debtedness equalled 5.4% of the total assessed value. There are now three banks in the town: the Braintree Sav- ings Bank, founded as the Weymouth and Braintree Insti- tution for Savings in 1833, the Braintree Cooperative Bank, chartered in 1889, and the Braintree National Bank. chartered in 1919. The town has two weekly newspapers: The Braintree Observer, established in 1878, its present circulation being 3,200; and the Braintree Netos-Item, dat- ing from 1932, its present circulation being 2.300." There are approximately a score of social and fraternal organ- izations in the town, besides a Chamber of Commerce and a local of the Boot and Shoe Workers' Union. Braintree was selected as the site of the Norfolk County Tuberculosis Hospital in 1917.ª
Early Braintree, which comprised the city of Quincy, the towns of Randolph, Holbrook and Braintree, gave to the state many famous families, chief of whom were those of Adams, Hancock, Quincy, Brackett and Bass, all of Quincy, and the Thayer and French families of Braintree. From them came two presidents and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, besides many state officials of promi- nence. Descendants of many of the old pioneers, such as Allen, Arnold, Baxter, Beale, Belcher, Billings, Brackett, Copeland. Curtis, Faxon, Hayden. Hayward. Newcomb, Nightingale, Niles, Penniman, Spear, Thompson. Veazie, Vinton and Wales, and probably others, are still living in the various parts of Old Braintree.
:. Moody's Monud of Imsimeits, New York, 1039, p. 525
2. American Press Association, Rox Direttory, of County and Suburban Neus- Hofors, New York, 1919, p. : 5
3. Norfolk County Commorioner!' Report, 1917, p. 22
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General Ebenezer Thayer By SAMUEL A. BATES
G ENERAL EBENEZER THAYER, the only Revolutionary general of the Middle Precinct of Old Braintree, now the present town of Braintree, son of Hon. Ebenezer and Susanna (Niles) Thayer, was born August 21, 1746, and died May 30, 1809, aged 62 years, 9 months and 9 days. He married RACHEL THAYER, February 4, 1773, daughter of Gideon and Rachel (Thayer) Thayer, who was born De- cember 20, 1744, and died August 29, 1819, aged 74 years, 8 months and 9 days. He resided on the estate next east of the meeting house, on Elm Street, which was previously the residence of the Rev. Samuel Niles, his grandfather, and was later owned by Ebenezer Coddington Thayer, his grand- son. This house was built by the Rev. Mr. Niles previous to 1718, and probably soon after his settlement in 1711. It was a one-story house when first built. Rev. Mr. Niles' old house stood a little further to the eastward, near the foot of the hill.
General Thayer, as he was commonly called, was one of the most prominent men in Braintree, from 1776 to 1804, when he retired from public life in consequence of ill health. During the war of the Revolution he was actively engaged in the cause of liberty in some position of importance. July 15, 1776, when he was scarcely thirty years of age, he was elected Town Clerk and Treasurer in place of Elisha Niles, who died July 1, 1776. He served in those offices ten years previous to the division of the old town and for eleven years in the present town of Braintree, after Quincy had become a sepa- rate corporation. General Thayer's records are models of excellence, being full and complete. Almost the first act of his official life was to record the Declaration of Independ- ence, which document gave birth to a mighty nation. It is written in such a hand as can be easily read, although 106 years [now 164] have elapsed since it was placed upon the records. To him we are indebted for a large number of births
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THE JECHONIAS THAYER HOUSE, ELM STREET, BUILT ABOUT 1820
GEORGE DAVIS STUDIO
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STORRS SQUARE, BRAINTREE, BEFORE 1869
OLD PUMP, STORRS SQUARE
being recorded, which had previously been omitted in their proper place. And during that long term of office he was ab- sent from but one town meeting, it being August 7, 1780, he being absent in the army when Stephen Penniman was chosen Clerk and Deacon Moses French, Treasurer pro tem. Mr. Thayer was chosen one of the Committee of Safety in 1777, which was a position of great importance at that time, a perilous period in the history of the Revolution. But he was not only considered a safe counselor ; he also engaged actively in the military service.
In April 1775, he was commissioned lieutenant in the com- pany of minute men under Capt. John Vinton. At that time he served only three days; but soon after he was called into service as lieutenant in an independent company under the command of Capt. John Vinton, and the time of service 8 months, 2 weeks and 4 days. This was in 1775. Again on January 1, 1776, we find him in command of an independent company whose term of service was 3 months and I day from that time. At what time he was promoted to the rank of colonel we do not know, but by the records it appears that September 8, 1777, it was “ voted to indemnify Col. Ebenezer Thayer tertius from any fine that may be laid on him in omitting to draft the men, agreeable to a resolve passed the 1 5th day of August last past, and the foregoing, being read several times in the town meeting, was accepted. Signed, Wil- liam Penniman, Moderator." At the same meeting measures were taken to procure men to fill the quota. He was colonel of a regiment of new levies from the County of Suffolk, raised for three months to reinforce the Continental Army in 1780. About the year 1791, he was commissioned brigadier gen- eral of the militia. How long he served is not known. He was Selectman of the town 8 years, and a member of the Executive Council 2 years. He was also appointed the first Sheriff of the County of Norfolk at its formation, in 1793, but resigned that position in 1794 when his half brother, Atherton, was appointed in his place. This was not all his work, for from his first entrance into public life, until ill health caused him to give up active duties, he was constantly being placed upon the most important committees which were chosen by the town.
The following is a copy of the record of his death, evi-
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dently written by his son : - "Hon. Ebenezer Thayer, Esq., died May 30th 1809. He served the town many years as Selectman, Town Clerk and Treasurer. Was chosen their Representative for years; was chosen and served as Coun- cilor, and was appointed the first Sheriff of the County of Norfolk, Justice of the Peace throughout the Common- wealth, etc .; all of which offices he filled with integrity, and with no less usefulness to the public than honor to himself. He rose from grade to grade in the militia to brigadier gen- eral. He left a fair reputation, one which even his enemies respected and envied. He died of a general debility, conse- quent on the stopping of a severe cough, with which he was exercised nearly twenty years. His death, though somewhat sudden, was easy; his senses unimpaired, his mind calm and unruffled. He died like a real disciple of that pure religion of which he for many years was a professor."
The above is a brief sketch of one who for many years was prominent in the history of Braintree. He deserves a better historian, who with time and means could collect from the records of the state, county and town a valuable book, as an addition to the historical literature of Braintree. Will some of his descendants take heed of this hint and cause such a memorial to be prepared as shall worthily commemorate his services ?
The above article appeared in the Braintree Observer of December 2, 1882.
Braintree Resolutions
Instructions given by the town of Braintree, Mass., on September 24, 1765, to its representative, Ebenezer Thayer, in the Massachusetts General Court relative to his action in the matter of the Stamp Act. They were drawn by John Adams, one of a committee of five appointed by the Braintree town meeting for that purpose, and were subsequently adopted by some forty Massachusetts towns as their instruc- tions to their own representatives. They declared that it was "contrary to the Fundamental principles of the British Par- liament because we are not Represented in that assembly in any sense, unless it be by a fiction of law (as insensible in Theory as it would be Injurious in Fact if so heavy a Taxa- tion should be grounded on it ").
Modern Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, 1936, by William H. Wise & Co., N. Y. See Braintree Records (Bates, 1886), p. 405.
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General Sylvanus Thayer
By STACY BAXTER SOUTHWORTH Headmaster, Thayer Academy
T 'HE life of SYLVANUS THAYER was, from birth to death, typically American. His life was deep-rooted in the soil of New England. He was of the seventh generation in direct line from Richard Thayer, a Puritan immigrant, who came from the parish of Thornbury in Gloucestershire, England, and settled in Braintree, Massachusetts, about 1640. He was born in Braintree, June 9, 1785, the fifth child of Nathaniel and Dorcas Faxon Thayer, and was one of a family of seven children.
The Thayer farm land was too rocky to be profitably pro- ductive, and seven young children were a heavy burden of sup- port for the parents. Faithful daily toil verged on honest poverty. Evidently Azariah Faxon, Dorcas Thayer's brother, who had been a gallant officer in the American Revo- lution, was intimately acquainted with the situation, for in 1793, shortly after the birth of the seventh child, he wrote a letter to his sister urging her to send her youngest son, Sylvanus, to live with him in Washington, New Hampshire. So Sylvanus Thayer had, during the formative years of his boyhood, the sturdy influence of this strong-fibered soldier of the American Revolution. Azariah Faxon did not intend to have his nephew spoiled by the soft theory of life. He im- pressed upon him from the very start that sturdy character was forged into final shape by the blows of obstacles, and by sharp and persistent struggle.
At the age of twelve Sylvanus Thayer was clerking in the town grocery store. In his spare time, he was mastering the rudiments of an education. By the age of seventeen he fol- lowed the example of his soldier uncle and began teaching in the district school. A year later, in September, 1803, he was admitted to Dartmouth College with " honorable mention." During his senior year he led his class at Dartmouth, and was chosen to deliver the valedictory.
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Thayer's valedictory was not delivered ! Duty had called him to another field of service ; he had been appointed a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and the summons had come to report immediately. In becoming a West Point cadet he sensed at once that he had taken upon himself a covenant that made him in a very special sense a son of the nation. He seemed to realize that every act of his life would form a part of the public record of the United States Military Academy, and that that record would be a part of the history of his country. Within a year -to be exact, on February 23, 1808 - he was graduated from West Point, the most brilliant cadet in his class.
From that date until he was called to the field in 1812, Sylvanus Thayer was actively employed in engineer service, in giving mathematical instruction at West Point, where he was adjutant of the Academy, and in ordnance duty.
At the outbreak of the War of 1812 Lieutenant Thayer entered immediately into active service as an officer of engi- neers. He was Chief Engineer of the Northern Army under the command of Major General Dearborn, of the right division of the same army under command of Major General Hampton, to whom he was aide-de-camp in the campaign of 1813, and of the forces under command of Brigadier General Porter in the defense of Norfolk, Virginia, in 1814. "For distinguished and meritorious services" against the British in the defense of Norfolk he was brevetted Major, Febru- ary 20, 1815.
The United States Government had discovered Major Thayer's unusual ability and great promise. Almost immedi- ately he was selected, with Colonel William McRee of North Carolina, to accompany Commodore Decatur's expedition to chastise the Algerian pirates. But before the expedition set sail these two men were entrusted with the far greater re- sponsibility of studying the military systems of Europe, par- ticularly the science of war as practiced in the army of Napoleon Bonaparte.
A voyage of a month in the frigate Congress brought them to the English Channel. As they sailed into the Chan- nel, the news reached them that the Battle of Waterloo had been fought only two days before ; but they had the honor of riding into Paris with the Duke of Wellington's staff.
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العمان الو
In Paris, occupied immediately by the allied forces, Syl- vanus Thayer had the unique opportunity of witnessing and studying daily the evolution of the troops which had defeated Napoleon's army on the field of Waterloo. Sylvanus Thayer spent two years in the mastering of this government trust. The military organizations of the Great Powers, their army, their equipment, their arsenals, and the courses of study in their military schools, were carefully examined, and the fundamentals thoroughly mastered.
Almost immediately after his return Sylvanus Thayer was designated by President Monroe to become the Superintend- ent of the United States Military Academy. For sixteen years, from 1817 to 1833, Sylvanus Thayer carried on this important trust. The years of Major Thayer's superin- tendency have often been called the "Golden Age " of the United States Military Academy. The great work which he accomplished was far more than reconstruction or reform; it was a new creation of the Academy. He found when he came, to use the words of Major General Cullum, " a drowsy school of supine students; he left it a great seminary of science and military art." It is a just appraisal to comment that Major Thayer gave to West Point its unique character among the educational centers of the country and laid the foundation for its wide fame.
On January 19, 1833, Sylvanus Thayer tendered his resig- nation as Superintendent of the Military Academy, and it was accepted on March 14 by the Secretary of War with great reluctance.
Almost immediately Major Thayer was appointed to take charge of the construction of the fortifications between Boston and the British provinces. On George's, or Pember- ton's Island, in 1833, Major Thayer designed and con- structed what was then considered as one of the greatest fortresses on the Atlantic seaboard. It perpetuated the name Fort Warren, and replaced the first fortification erected on this island in 1778. The second engineering project was the construction of Fort Independence. During the ten years from 1833 to 1843 Major Thayer was rated as the greatest engineer in the military service.
In December, 1843, he went a second time to Europe under a commission from the government, to examine the state of
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military science and the fortifications on that continent. When he returned to this country, the colleges of the land united to do him homage. In 1846 his Alma Mater, Dart- mouth College, conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws ; five years later Harvard College conferred a like degree. Throughout these years he was a highly esteemed member of the American Academy of Art and of the American Philosophical Society. He retired from active service June 1, 1863, his name having been borne on the Army register for more than forty-five years. Two days before his retirement he was brevetted by Abraham Lincoln, Brigadier General.
The evening of his day brought back to him the memory of his early boyhood. He returned to Braintree, the town of his birth, to live out the nine remaining years of his life. The house in which he lived with his sister stood on the present site of the Thayer Academy.
During the active years of his life Sylvanus Thayer had laid aside a goodly competence through wise investments and frugal living. Now his thoughts turned to the disposition of appropriate legacies. He thought first of his Alma Mater, and made a benefaction of approximately $100,000 to endow the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College.
The Town of Braintree should especially remember Sylvanus Thayer with gratitude for his two great benefac- tions which made possible the establishment of a Town Li- brary and a staunch New England Academy. Not only was the Thayer Public Library built through money laid aside by General Thayer ; it was also endowed with a maintenance fund, the income of which it spends each year in the interest of the Library.
The largest legacy Sylvanus Thayer left was for the found- ing of a school in his native town, a school, as he wrote in his will, that should "offer to youth the opportunity to rise, through the pursuit of duty, industry, and honor, from small beginnings to honorable achievement." On the site of his home in Braintree, Thayer Academy was reared.
In the old North Braintree cemetery, near his father's grave, Sylvanus Thayer was laid to rest in 1872. Simply and appropriately he was buried there. But the United States Military Academy also revered his memory, and five years
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later his remains were transferred to the West Point campus. On the ground above, the Academy has erected an impressive statue which overlooks the campus. Below, are inscribed the words, "Colonel Thayer, Father of the Military Academy."
Recently the Association of Graduates at West Point has nominated General Thayer for the Hall of Fame. The Town of Braintree unites with the Military Academy on this, the occasion of its Tercentenary Commemoration, in paying a tribute of deepest respect and admiration in appreciation of the services and the character of this distinguished citizen and patriot.
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