John Boyd Thacher (1847-1909)[Section 29 Lot 33]
Mayor of Albany, NYS Senator, lobbied for funding which surveyed the topographical and hydrographical features of NYS, name sake to John Boyd Thacher State Park
John Boyd Thacher was born in Ballston Spa on September 11, 1847. The middle child of George Hornell Thatcher and Ursula Jane Boyd, he is a descendant of Rev. Thomas Thacher, the first pastor of the Old South Church in Boston. Thacher had private tutors in Albany and Frederick, MD, later he attended Williams College in Massachusetts, graduating in 1869 with high honors. After college, he took evening classes at Folsome’s Business College, later known as Albany Business College. During the day he worked in his father’s foundry, Thacher Car Works, first as an iron molder and eventually taking over the management in 1873 with his younger brother. The company manufactured wheels and underpinning for the construction of railroad cars. The company supplied most of the wheels for the New York Central Railroad.
On September 11, 1872, John’s 25th birthday, he married Emma Curtis Treadwell. Her great grandfather was a member of the Colonial Congress and last puritan governor of Connecticut.
Thacher was appointed to the Albany Board of Public Health, which most likely influenced his run for New York Senate, serving from 1884 – 1885. During this time he pushed through legislation which established a commission to study and make recommendations of tenement housing. New York was constructing a new State Capitol, and Thacher sponsored legislation which prohibited prisons from doing manual labor on it. He also fought for funding for the State Trigonometrical Society, who was responsible for doing topographical and hydrographical surveys of New York State.
He served as Mayor of Albany, following in his father’s footsteps who was known as “that old warhorse of democracy.” From 1886-1888 and 1896-1897 Thacher served the City of Albany. During his time as mayor, the city’s bicentennial took place which had a four-day celebration to honor the city charter. While in office the Harmanus Bleecker Hall and Union Station were constructed, and the tax rate in 1887 was at its lowest before the Civil War.
In the 1890s the United States paid homage to Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America. Though there were parades and celebration around the country, the largest was in Chicago. From 1890 – 1895 Thacher served as a delegate from New York and Chairman of the Executive Committee on Awards at the World’s Columbia Exposition, being nominated by President Benjamin Harrison. Thacher was already known as a collector, having collected the signatures of all signers of the Declaration of Independence, and went on to collect early maps of America. The collection is composed of four distinct bodies of material -- incunabula, early Americana, material pertaining to the French Revolution, and autographs. Throughout the first two decades of the twentieth century, his wife donated vast amounts of his collection to the Smithsonian following his death.
He went on to publish The Continent of America, its Discovery and its Baptism (1896), and Christopher Columbus: His Life, his Work, his Remains, and Revealed by Original Printed and Manuscript Records, together with an Essay on Peter Marty of Anghera and Bartolome de les Casas, they First Historians of America (1903). This book researched every reported image of Columbus as well as research his ancestors. Thacher was also known to have the Castillo lockets which contained bones and dust of Columbus which were on display during the World’s Columbia Exposition.
Thacher and his wife purchased a substantial amount of property around their summer residence in the Helderbergs. This area includes Indian Ladder, Thompsons Lake, Hale’s Cavern, Tory’s Cave, and Helm’s Crack. After his death, his wife donated 350 acres and became John Boyd Thacher State Park. Today the park is over 1,000 acres.
Thacher died on February 25, 1909, and interred in the family crypt at Albany Rural Cemetery. The rear of the mausoleum features a stained-glass window which mimics the sail of one of Columbus’ ships, the Santa Maria.