Sylvanus Thayer

A native of Braintree, Massachusetts, Thayer attended Dartmouth for three years, then entered West Point, graduating in 1808. After coastal fortification service and participation in the War of 1812, he spent two years in Europe studying military institutions. He became superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy in 1817. Backed by Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, Thayer overhauled the academic and disciplinary systems. His reforms included organizing the corps of cadets into a battalion, establishing an academic board to oversee curricular matters, dividing classes into sections according to merit, and holding semiannual examinations. He also recruited several professors who achieved distinction, especially Dennis Hart Mahan. After a dispute with President Andrew Jackson Thayer, resigned his office in 1833 and returned to coastal fortification duty. Upon retirement, he established an engineering school at Dartmouth.

Having created what he considered a perfect structure at the military academy, Thayer resisted all subsequent attempts at modification, blasting other reformers with his vitriolic pen despite their contributions to the institution. In some respects he succeeded. Key elements of the Thayer system remain in force at West Point today.

[See also Academies, Service.]

Bibliography

• Sidney B. Forman, West Point, A History of the United States Military Academy, 1950.
• Joseph Ellis and Robert Moore, School for Soldiers: West Point and the Profession of Arms, 1974.
• James L. Morrison, Jr., “The Best School”: West Point, 1833–1866, 1998

Thayer, Sylvanus (1785-1872) U.S. military educator; “Father of the Military Academy.” Born in Braintree, Massachusetts, Thayer attended Dartmouth College (1803-1807) before being graduated from West Point and commissioned in the Army Corps of Engineers in 1808. He performed engineering duties and rose to the rank of brevet major in the War of 1812. In 1815, Thayer was sent to Europe to study European military doctrine, fortifications, and education. He returned to West Point in 1817 as superintendent and undertook a thorough reform of the administration and curriculum of the Military Academy, expanding both the liberal arts and the military training portions of the curriculum. His efforts made West Point the nation's premier engineering school and were largely responsible for the formation of the most prominent American military and civilian leaders of the mid-nineteenth century. In 1833, Thayer quarreled with President Andrew Jackson over the disciplining of cadets and resigned as superintendent. Promoted to lieutenant colonel of engineers in 1838, he spent the remainder of his military career on engineering duties, mainly in New England. He took a leave of absence for reasons of health in 1858 and was retired from active service in 1863 as a brevet brigadier general.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Sylvanus Thayer (1785-1872), American educator and engineer, put the U.S. Military Academy on a secure footing and promoted civil engineering as a collegiate course and profession.

Sylvanus Thayer was born on June 9, 1785, in Braintree, Mass. He entered Dartmouth College in 1803 but left in 1807 to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He graduated in 1808, was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers, and served in the War of 1812. In 1815 he was breveted a major and ordered to study European methods of educating military engineers so that he might help rescue West Point from incipient decay. The academy had a reputation for laxity in discipline and academic standards and suffered from uncertainty about whether to stress civilian or military studies.

After a year at the French École Polytechnique studying the curriculum and gathering a library, Thayer became superintendent at West Point in 1817. He accomplished sweeping reforms, setting new standards for admission, establishing minimum levels of academic proficiency, and creating a system to measure cadet progress. A commandant of cadets was appointed to regulate discipline and the military curriculum. Thayer established a board of visitors to inspect the academy annually to recommend adjustments in curriculum. He also established an academic board of faculty and administrators to develop academic policy.

Because West Point was required to provide professional officers for the Army, military subjects dominated the program. But Thayer also believed that the arts and sciences were important, as he wanted graduates to discharge the civilian offices of life with distinction. Courses in English and French, the natural and social sciences, mathematics, and ethics became staples. Refinements increased the civilian applications of West Point's curriculum. By 1831 the military engineering course was designated "civil engineering" and had lost most of its military overtones, encompassing the construction of "buildings and arches, canals, bridges, and other public works." Some graduates applied this in building the communications network to support America's developing industrial system.

Suspicion that the academy was an incubator of a military aristocracy led to tensions between Thayer and President Andrew Jackson's administration. Thayer was reassigned in 1833 as a colonel to supervise the construction of fortifications and harbor improvements in Massachusetts and Maine. He became commander of the Corps of Engineers in 1857 but took a sick leave in the next year. Thayer retired in 1863 as a brigadier general. In 1867 he endowed the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth and spent his last years arranging its curriculum. He died in Braintree on Sept. 7, 1872. His will established the Thayer Academy.

Further Reading

There is no adequate biography of Thayer. R. Ernest Dupuy, Sylvanus Thayer: Father of Technology in the United States (1958), concise and complete, claims more for Thayer than it proves. Sidney Forman, West Point: A History of the United States Military Academy (1950), describes Thayer's career in a broader context.

Sylvanus Thayer
June 9, 1785(1785-06-09) – September 7, 1872 (aged 87)
Sylvanus Thayer, painting by Robert Weir
Nickname	"Father of West Point"
Place of birth	Braintree, Massachusetts
Place of death	Braintree, Massachusetts
Resting place	West Point Cemetery
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1808 – 1863
Rank	Brigadier General
Commands held	U.S. Military Academy
Battles/wars	War of 1812

Brigadier General Sylvanus Thayer (June 9, 1785 - September 7, 1872) also known as "the Father of West Point" was an early superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point and an early advocate of engineering education in the United States.

Biography

Thayer was born in Braintree, Massachusetts, the son of farmer Nathaniel Thayer and his wife Dorcas. In 1793, at the age of 8, Thayer was sent to live with his uncle Azariah Faxon and attend school in Washington, New Hampshire. There he met General Benjamin Pierce, who, like Faxon, was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. In 1803 Thayer matriculated at Dartmouth College, graduating in 1807 as valedictorian of his class.

Thayer, however, never gave the valedictory address at Dartmouth, having been granted an appointment to West Point by President Thomas Jefferson at the behest of General Pierce. Thayer graduated from the Military Academy after a single year, and received his commission as a second lieutenant in 1808.

During the War of 1812, Thayer directed the fortification and defense of Norfolk, Virginia, and was promoted to major. In 1815, Thayer was provided $5,000 to travel to Europe, where he studied for two years at the French École Polytechnique. While traveling in Europe he amassed a collection of science and especially mathematics texts that now form a valuable collection for historians of mathematics [1]. In 1817, President James Monroe ordered Thayer to West Point to become superintendent of the Military Academy. Under his stewardship, the Academy became the nation's first college of engineering.

Statue and Memorial to Sylvanus Thayer

Colonel Thayer's time at West Point ended with his resignation in 1833, after a disagreement with President Andrew Jackson. Thayer returned to active duty in the Army Corps of Engineers. Thayer spend the great majority of the next 30 years as the chief engineer for the Boston area. During this time he oversaw the construction of both Fort Warren and Fort Independence to defend Boston Harbor. Thayer retired from the Army in 1863 with the rank of brevet brigadier general.

As a result of Thayer's enduring legacy at the United States Military Academy, in 1869 a notable meeting took place in Braintree between Thayer and the celebrated West Point graduate and Civil War hero Brigadier General Robert Anderson. An outcome of Anderson's 1869 meeting with Thayer was establishment of the Military Academy's Association of Graduates (AoG).

In 1867, Thayer donated $30,000 to the trustees of Dartmouth College to create the Thayer School of Engineering. Thayer personally located and recommended USMA graduate Lieutenant Robert Fletcher to Dartmouth president Asa Dodge Smith. Fletcher became the school's first—then only—professor and dean.

The Thayer School admitted its first three students to a graduate program in 1871. Also in 1871 at the bequest of his will Thayer Academy in Braintree, Massachusetts was conceived. It opened September 12, 1877. Sylvanus Thayer died on September 7, 1872 at his home in Braintree. He was reinterred at West Point Cemetery in 1877.

Thayer is not a very common name. Most Thayers are directly related to him. Most of the family now lives in Maryland as well as in Massachusetts.

To honor his achievements, in 1958, the Sylvanus Thayer Award was created by the United States Military Academy.

See also

• Gen. Sylvanus Thayer House
• Thayer Academy
• Thayer Public Library

References

Kershner, James William, Sylvanus Thayer – A Biography, Arno Press, New York, 1982, p. 329.

Military offices
Preceded by Alden Partridge	Superintendents of the United States Military Academy 1817–1833	Succeeded by René Edward De Russy

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