(June 11, 1819 — April 15, 1899) Eli Thayer, (father of John Alden Thayer), a Representative from Massachusetts; born in Mendon, Worcester County, Mass., June 11, 1819; attended the common schools, the academies in Bellingham and Amherst, Mass., and the Worcester Manual Labor School; taught school in Douglas, Mass., in 1835 and 1836 and in Hopkington, R.I., in 1842; had charge of the boys' high school in Providence, R.I., in 1844; was graduated from Brown University at Providence in 1845 and was an instructor in Worcester Academy 1845-1848; studied law and was admitted to the bar, but did not practice; founded the Oread Collegiate Institute, a school for young women, in 1848; member of the Worcester School Board in 1852; alderman of Worcester in 1852 and 1853; member of the State house of representatives in 1853 and 1854; while in the legislature secured a charter, and originated and organized the New England Emigrant Aid Co., which had for its purpose the sending out of an advance colony of antislavery settlers to Kansas; elected as a Republican to the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1857-March 3, 1861); chairman, Committee on Public Lands (Thirty-sixth Congress); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1860 to the Thirty-seventh Congress; delegate accredited from Oregon to the Republican National Convention in 1860; engaged in railroad and other business pursuits; unsuccessful candidate for election in 1872 to the Forty-third Congress; died in Worcester, Mass., April 15, 1899; interment in Hope Cemetery. [Source: “Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 - Present,” available at https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/T000145]