Braintree Historical Society  31 Tenney Road,  Braintree, MA  02184

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Sylvanus Thayer Birthplace
10:00 A.M.- 4:30 P.M. Saturday & Sunday
By Appointment on Tuesday & Wednesday
Please call 781-848-1640 for information or to schedule a tour
The cost of a tour is $5.00 for adults, $3.00 for children (includes Gilbert Bean Museum)

The Sylvanus Thayer Birthplace was built in 1720 by Nathaniel Thayer (1658-1728) and is most famous as the birthplace of General Sylvanus Thayer (1785-1872), also known as “the Father of West Point.” The original oak-framed structure had four rooms;  two upstairs bedrooms and two downstairs rooms (a parlor and a hall), a large central chimney, and leaded casement windows.  A small shed, which was used as a shoe shop, was added in 1755.  A lean-to was added to the back of the house in 1760, which transformed the house into an elegant New England saltbox design.  The Thayer birthplace is one of only a handful of original saltbox homes still around today.

The house was originally located on a ninety-two acre site in Braintree Highlands near the Holbrook Line before the Braintree Historical Society moved it nearly a mile to its current location on Washington Street.  The move began in 1957 when the Walworth Steel Company began building a five million dollar plant on the Thayer Estate.  The company  gave the house to the Society,  who then began the task of restoring it.  The restoration project took several years but the house proved fairly easy to restore because little remodeling had been done over the centuries.  A large percentage of the interior was original and modifications and updates had been made by covering up the original interior elements rather than removing them.  The wide boards and interior trim used in the Thayer House restoration were acquired from the unused Old Bass homestead in Quincy, which was built around the same time as the Thayer house. The house is restored to the period of General Thayer’s early childhood (1785-1793) and is furnished with period antiques. 

Click on the following images to see inside the Thayer House

 

General Sylvanus Thayer

General Sylvanus Thayer, the fifth child of Nathaniel and Dorcas Faxon Thayer and the house’s most famous occupant, was born here on June 9, 1785.  At the age of eight, his parents sent him to live in New Hampshire with his uncle, Azariah Faxon, so that he could get a better education. Sylvanus remained with his uncle until he was admitted to Dartmouth College in 1803.  He graduated in 1807 before entering the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, from which he graduated at the top of his class on February 23, 1808. 

West Point prepared Sylvanus for what would become a life-time of military service.  He began his career as an engineering officer during the War of 1812, but is most famous for his work as Superintendent at the West Point Military Academy (1817-1833). At West Point, Thayer improved all the academic departments, hired the best available educators, instituted strict disciplinary standards, promoted scholarly excellence and achievement through challenging examinations, and established the first technological and engineering curriculum in the country.  Thayer’s outstanding work transformed the Academy into a leading educational institution and earned him the nickname “The Father of West Point.”   

After leaving West Point,  Thayer worked on Forts Warren, Winthrop, and Independence in Boston Harbor before retiring from the Army on June 1, 1863.  Since he never married, he spent his later years living in Braintree with his sister, Livia, and her husband, Dr. Jonathan Wilde.  Thayer remained busy in retirement, founding the Thayer Public Library (opened 1874) and the Thayer Academy school (opened 1877) in Braintree.  In 1867, he also founded and endowed the nation’s first graduate school of engineering, the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth.  Thayer died in Braintree on September 7, 1872 at the age of eighty-seven.

 


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Last modified: 11/07/07