{{Short description|American financier and philanthropist}} {{Infobox person | name = Nathaniel Thayer II | image = Nathaniel Thayer.jpg | birth_date = {{birth date|1808|09|11}} | birth_place = Lancaster, Massachusetts | death_date = {{death date and age|1883|03|07|1808|09|11}} | death_place = Boston, Massachusetts | parents = Nathaniel Thayer<br>Sarah Parker Toppan | relatives = Stephen Van Rensselaer IV (father-in-law) | spouse = Cornelia Patterson Van Rensselaer | children = 7 | signature = Nathaniel Thayer signature.png }} '''Nathaniel Thayer II''' (11 September 1808 in Lancaster, Massachusetts – 7 March 1883 in Boston) was an American financier, philanthropist, and the father of John Eliot Thayer II, an amateur ornithologist.
==Early life== He was the son of Nathaniel Thayer I (1769–1840), a Unitarian congregational minister of Lancaster, Massachusetts, and Sarah Parker Toppan, daughter of Christopher Toppan and Sarah Parker.<ref name="bms597">{{cite web |url=http://div.hds.harvard.edu/library/bms/bms00597.html |title=Nathaniel Thayer. Papers, 1798-1844. |access-date=2007-03-16 |date=2005-11-22 |work=Andover-Harvard Theological Library |publisher=Harvard Divinity School}}</ref>{{sfn|Wilson|Fiske|1889|p=73}}
===Banking=== His brother John Eliot Thayer I had been operating a successful banking firm in Boston. When he needed more people, he asked Nathaniel Thayer II to be his business partner, now calling the firm John E. Thayer and Brother.<ref name="King_p28">{{cite news |last1=King |first1=Padriaic |title=Thayers Built Bank Tradition |publisher=Boston Sunday Post |date=11 August 1929 |pages=28}}</ref> The firm was active in the development of railroads in the western United States, several of which Thayer was a director.{{sfn|Wilson|Fiske|1889|p=73}} The firm was also involved with other enterprises such as manufacturing which required large amounts of capital. Thayer became senior director of the firm on the death of his brother in 1857. He gradually acquired a large fortune.{{citation needed|date=April 2016}}
He was known as the “honest banker” because he sold money at the legal rate unlike most, for the time. In 1865 Nathaniel Thayer II retired, sold his business to his partners and lived primarily in The Homestead for “he preferred the woods and fields to the streets and crowds”. He then lived in Lancaster with his wife Cornelia Van Rensselaer Thayer until his death in 1883.<ref name="King_p28" />
===Philanthropy=== He was a fellow of Harvard in 1868-1875, and one of its largest benefactors. He contributed to a commons hall, erected Thayer Hall in 1870 as a memorial of his father and brother, bore the expenses of Louis Agassiz's 1865-66 expedition to South America (known as the Thayer Expedition; which his son Stephen Van Rensselaer Thayer also joined as a research assistant), built a fire-proof herbarium at the botanic garden, and gave much in aid of poor students of the college. He was one of the most generous citizens of Boston.{{sfn|Wilson|Fiske|1889|p=73}}
==Personal life== He married Cornelia Paterson Van Rensselaer (1823–1897), daughter of Stephen Van Rensselaer IV, in 1846. Together, they had seven children:<ref name="Spooner">{{cite journal|last1=Spooner|first1=Walter Whipple|title=Van Rensselaer family|journal=American Historical Magazine|date=1 January 1900|volume=2|issue=1|url=https://archive.org/details/vanrensselaerfam21spoo|access-date=8 November 2016|publisher=[S.l. : s.n.}}</ref>
* Stephen Van Rensselaer Thayer (1847–1871), who married Alice Robeson, a daughter of Andrew Robeson Jr.<ref name="Reynolds1911">{{cite book |last1=Reynolds |first1=Cuyler |title=Hudson-Mohawk Genealogical and Family Memoirs: A Record of Achievements of the People of the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys in New York State, Included Within the Present Counties of Albany, Rensselaer, Washington, Saratoga, Montgomery, Fulton, Schenectady, Columbia and Greene |date=1911 |publisher=Lewis Historical Publishing Company |page=26 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b4k-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA24-IA6 |access-date=20 March 2023 |language=en}}</ref> * Cornelia Van Rensselaer Thayer (1849–1903), who married J. Hampden Robb (1846–1911) in 1868.<ref>{{cite news|title=J. HAMPDEN ROBB, EX-SENATOR, DEAD; Retired Merchant and Banker Was Once Active in Councils of Democratic Party.|url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1911/01/22/106780749.html?pageNumber=11|access-date=8 November 2016|work=The New York Times|date=January 22, 1911}}</ref> * Nathaniel Thayer III (1851–1911) * Harriet Van Rensselaer Thayer (1853–1891) * Eugene Van Rensselaer Thayer (1855–1907) * Bayard Thayer (1862–1916), a yachtsman and horticulturalist who married Ruth Simpkins (1864–1941). * John Eliot Thayer (1862–1933), an amateur ornithologist who married Evelyn Duncan Forbes.
Although Nathaniel Thayer II lived in Boston for many years, he always regarded himself as belonging to Lancaster. He is quoted as saying "Lancaster is my greatest monument."{{sfn|King|1929}}
===Descendants=== His granddaughter, Cornelia Van Rensselaer Thayer (b. 1881) married Danish Count Carl Moltke (1869–1935) in 1907.<ref>{{cite news|title=Miss Thayer is Countess. Weds Danish Noble at Lancaster. Ceremony at Country Home by Bishop Lawrence. Moltke, Diplomat, is the Bridegroom|url=https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/boston/access/729409532.html?dids=729409532:729409532&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&date=Jun+30%2C+1907&author=&pub=Boston+Daily+Globe&desc=MISS+THAYER+IS+COUNTESS&pqatl=google|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121106053144/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/boston/access/729409532.html?dids=729409532:729409532&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&date=Jun+30,+1907&author=&pub=Boston+Daily+Globe&desc=MISS+THAYER+IS+COUNTESS&pqatl=google|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 6, 2012|quote=This noon, at ... beautiful country seat of Mr and ... National Thayer, their daughter, ... Cornelia Van Rennsealaer Thayer ... Count Carl Moltke of Copenhagen, ... were married...|newspaper=New York Times|date=30 June 1907|access-date=26 March 2011}}</ref>
The family lived in that house along with their other two houses, one in Boston and the other in Newport RI called The Edgemere. <ref>{{cite news |last1=Wilson |first1=Leslie Perrin |title=A General Diffusion of Knowledge': An Exhibition to Show Volumes from the Rare Book Collection of the Lancaster Town Library |date=February 17 – April 30, 1985}}</ref>
===Honors and memberships=== Elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1866.<ref>[https://www.americanantiquarian.org/memberlistt American Antiquarian Society Members Directory]</ref>
==References== ;Notes {{Reflist|30em}}
;Sources * {{Cite DAB |last=Gunn |first=Sidney |title=Thayer, Nathaniel |year=1936}} *{{Appletons'|wstitle=Thayer, Nathaniel |year=1889 |volume=6 |page=73}}
==Further reading== * George Edward Ellis, ''Memoir of Nathaniel Thayer, A. M.'' (1885; [https://books.google.com/books?id=hrYzQDSk2KQC Google Books], [https://archive.org/details/memoirofnathanie00elli archive.org])
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Thayer, Nathaniel Jr.}} Category:1808 births Category:1883 deaths Category:American philanthropists Category:Businesspeople from Boston Category:Van Rensselaer family Category:19th-century philanthropists