THAYER, Eli, educator, born in Mendon, Massachusetts, 11 June, 1819. He was graduated at Brown in 1845, was subsequently principal of the Worcester academy, and in 1848 founded the Oread institute, a collegiate school for young ladies, in Worcester, Massachusetts, of which he is treasurer. He was for several years a member of the school board of Worcester, and in 1853 an alderman of the city. In 1853-'4 he was a representative in the legislature, and while there originated and organized the Emigrant aid company, laboring till 1857 to combine the northern states in support of his plan to send antislavery settlers into Kansas. Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan, and Ossawatomie were settled under the auspices of his company. Governor Charles Robinson, at the quarter-centennial celebration of Kansas, at Topeka, said:" Without these settlements Kansas would have been a slave state without a struggle; without the Aid society these towns would never have existed; and that society was born of the brain of Eli Thayer." Charles Sumner also said that lie would rather have the credit that is due to Eli Thayer for his Kansas work than be the hero of the battle of New Orleans. In 1857-'61 Mr. Thayer sat in congress as a Republican, serving on the committee on militia, and as chairman of the committee on public hinds. In 1860 he was a delegate for Oregon to the National Republican convention at Chicago and labored for the nomination of Lincoln. He has patented many inventions, which cover a wide field. Among these are a hydraulic elevator in use in this country and in Europe, a sectional safety steam boiler, and an automatic boiler-cleaner, or sediment-extractor He has published a volume of congressional speeches (Boston, 1860); several lectures (Worcester, 1886); and is now writing a history of the Emigrant aid company that he organized and its influence on our national history.