John Thayer

John Eliot Thayer (April 3, 1862 – July 29, 1933) was an American amateur ornithologist, businessman, and politician. He created one of the largest collections of bird specimens which he donated to Harvard University.

Early life Thayer was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 3, 1862. and Nathaniel Thayer Jr.,

His maternal grandparents were Stephen Van Rensselaer IV (the 10th Patroon and 7th Lord of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck) and Harriet Elizabeth (née Bayard) Van Rensselaer. Through his father, he was descended from John Cotton, the preeminent minister and theologian of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Thayer and Outram Bangs wrote an article in The Condor to draw attention to the situation.

Thayer was a member of the faculty of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at the University of Cambridge. These included the first clutches ever collected of spoon-billed sandpiper and surfbird. After Thayer's death Harvard received his collection of 3,500 mounted birds.

Personal life On June 22, 1886, Thayer was married to Evelyn Duncan Forbes (1862–1943), a daughter of Franklin Forbes and Martha Ann Stearns (née Cushing) Forbes, in Clinton, Massachusetts. After the marriage, they settled at the family farm at Lancaster, thirty-five miles west of Boston. Together, John and Evelyn were the parents of:

John Eliot Thayer Jr. (1887–1966), a delegate to 1928 Republican National Convention from Massachusetts who married Katherine Lee Bayard Warren, a daughter of Samuel Dennis Warren. Duncan Forbes Thayer (1900–1957), who married Priscilla Pinkney McHenry (1906–1975). After his death, she married Charles Winslow Farnsworth in 1963.