Colonel/Brevet Brigadier General Sylvanus Thayer, 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. He has also been called the Father of Technology in the U.S. by some biographers.
Sylvanus Thayer was born in Braintree, Massachusetts on June 9, 1785, the son of Nathaniel Thayer, a farmer and veteran of the American Revolution, and his wife Dorcas Faxon. 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 Uncle Faxon, was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. In 1803, Thayer enrolled at Dartmouth College, graduating in 1807 as valedictorian of his class. Thayer was then granted an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point by President Thomas Jefferson at the behest of General Pierce. Thayer graduated from West Point after a single year and received his commission as a second lieutenant in 1808. His first assignment was to supervise the construction of Fort Warren (later renamed Fort Winthrop) in Boston Harbor.
During the War of 1812, Thayer directed the fortification and defense of Norfolk, Virginia, and was promoted to major. In 1815, he was provided $5,000 to travel to Europe, where he studied for two years at France’s École Polytechnique. While traveling in Europe, he amassed a collection of science and mathematics texts that now form a valuable collection for historians of mathematics.
In 1817, President James Monroe ordered Thayer to West Point to become Superintendent of the Military Academy, following the resignation of Captain Alden Partridge. Under his stewardship, West Point became the nation's first college of engineering. Thayer believed that arts and science were important and by 1831, the military engineering course was designated “civil engineering” and encompassed the construction of buildings and arches, canals, bridges, and other public works.
While at West Point, Thayer established numerous traditions and policies, which are still in use. These include the values of honor and responsibility, strict mental and physical discipline, the demerit system, summer encampment, high academic standards, and the requirement that cadets always maintain outstanding military bearing and appearance.
Another of Thayer's reforms was to establish a standard four-year curriculum with the cadets organized into four classes. Starting with the Class of 1823, July 1 was the date each year when the graduating class was commissioned, and the entering class was sworn in. The graduation date was moved up to June 15 starting in 1861.
Thayer's time at West Point ended with his resignation in 1833, after a disagreement with President Andrew Jackson. His work at West Point was seen as harsh but it was noted that the graduates worked on such projects as the Panama Canal, major railroads, harbors, and the Washington monument as well as becoming Army leaders in both the Mexican War and the Civil War. Thayer was an advocate of a performance/merit-based system versus nepotism, parochialism, and status for entry into West Point.
In 1833, Thayer returned to duty with the Army Corps of Engineers and was promoted to the rank of colonel. Thayer spent 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's great engineering ability can be observed in both above-mentioned forts. He was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1834, and he was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 1838.
Thayer was a Member of the Board of Engineers for Coast Defenses from April 2, 1833, to December 21, 1857, and was President of the Board from December 7, 1838, until 1857. He temporarily commanded of the Corps of Engineers from December 21, 1857, to December 22, 1858, while its commander, Colonel Joseph G. Totten, was on a leave of absence. In December 1858, Thayer was placed on an extended sick leave of absence. He did not play an active role in the American Civil War. In August 1861, “Fort Thayer,” an earthwork fort constructed as part of the Civil War defenses for Washington, D.C., was built and named in his honor. Thayer retired from the Army on June 1, 1863, with the rank of colonel in the Corps of Engineers. He was retired under the first act regulating the retirement of Army officers, which required the retirement of any officer with more than 45 years of service.
Throughout his career, Thayer was honored by institutions such as Harvard (1825), St Johns College in Maryland (1830), Kenyon College in Ohio (1846), and Harvard University (1857).
In 1869, as a result of Thayer's enduring legacy at the United States Military Academy (USMA), a meeting took place in Braintree between Thayer and the West Point graduate and Civil War hero Brigadier General Robert Anderson. An outcome of Anderson's meeting with Thayer was the establishment of the Military Academy's Association of Graduates (AoG).
In 1867, Thayer donated $70,000 ($2.05 million in 2025 dollars) 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, in Thayer’s will, the Thayer Academy in Braintree, Massachusetts was conceived. It opened on September 12, 1877.
Thayer died on September 7, 1872, at his home in Braintree. He was reinterred at West Point Cemetery in 1877. Thayer's obituary appeared in the New York Times on September 8, 1872. As a tribute, the Engineer Corps in the War Department wore mourning badges for 30 days and guns were fired at West Point every half hour from sunrise to sunset and the national flag was set at half-staff on September 14, 1872. At the time of his death, Thayer was the oldest graduate of West Point.
Thayer's papers and manuscripts are divided between the U.S. Military Academy Library, West Point, New York, and the Dartmouth College Library, Hanover, New Hampshire. He was included in General Cullum’s “Biographical Register of the West Point Graduates.”
Some of the honors Thayer received include:
In 1852, herpetologists Spencer Fullerton Baird and Charles Frédéric Girard of the Smithsonian Institution named a species of lizard in honor of Thayer, Sceloporus thayeri, which was later placed in the synonymy of Sceloporus undulatus hyacinthinus.
On April 21, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln nominated Thayer for the award of the honorary grade of brevet brigadier general, United States Army (Regular Army), to rank from May 31, 1863, the day before he retired, for long and faithful service. The U.S. Senate confirmed the award on April 27, 1864.
In 1883, a white granite statue was completed at West Point and named the Thayer Monument. There are ceremonies at West Point reunions that include his statue, including the oldest living graduate to lay a wreath at the base of the statue.
The Sylvanus Thayer Award was created in 1958 by the United States Military Academy. He has been honored by the United States Postal Service with a 9¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.
Thayer Street, in the Inwood, Manhattan section of New York City, is named after him.
References
Sylvanus Thayer: Father of Technology in the United States, R. Ernest Dupuy, Published by The Association of Graduates, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY, 1958.
Sylvanus Thayer, Military Wiki, 2022.United States Military Academy Association of Graduates Sylvanus Thayer Hall of Fame Committee Scrapbooks, by United States Military Academy. Association of Graduates. Sylvanus Thayer Hall of Fame Committee, 1960.
Sylvanus Thayer: A Biography, James William Kershner, Arno Press, 1982.
Sylvanus Thayer, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2022.
