been affirmed," &c. This may, perhaps, account for the puritanical zeal, with which so many of the family have opposed the prelatic power, and may be one, among other causes, of the strong attachment of the descendants to good New-England principles.

THOMAS THACHER, son of the above Peter, was born in England, May 1, 1620. In his early minority he appeared to have imbibed true puritan principles. Having received a grammar-school education at home, his father intended that his education should have been completed at the university, either of Cambridge or Oxford; but, disgusted with the prevailing ecclesiastical tyranny, to which he must have been subjected, he was induced to decline the proposals of his father, preferring to cross the Atlantic, that he might enjoy liberty of conscience in the wilds of New-England. To this determination his parents readily consented, as they themselves intended to have followed him; but this was prevented by the death of his mother. At the age of fifteen years, this enterprising young puritan embarked in company with his uncle, Anthony Thacher, and arrived in New-England, June 4, 1635. Shortly after their arrival they had occasion to pass from Ipswich to Marblehead; Anthony, with his wife and family, embarked on board a bark, belonging to Mr. Allerton, of Plymouth; they were overtaken by a tremendous tempest in the night, and shipwrecked on an island in Salem harbor, and twenty-one out of twenty-three persons were drowned, August 14, 1635, Mr. Thacher and his wife being the only persons saved. Thomas Thacher "had such a strong and sad impression upon his mind," says Dr. Cotton Mather, (Magnalia,) "about the issue of the voyage, that he, with another, would needs go the journey by land, and so he escaped perishing with some of his pious and precious friends by sea."* Being thus providentially preserved, young Thacher became an inmate in the family of the Rev. C. Chauncy, who was afterwards president of Harvard College; under the tuition of that eminent scholar he received his education, and was prepared for the duties of the ministry. He was not long an idle candidate. Such was his pious deportment, and so manifest his qualifications for a gospel teacher, that he was soon invited to become the pastor of the church at Weymouth, where he was ordained, January 2, 1644. In his ministerial labors he was most faithful and affectionate; among his excellencies was a peculiar spirit of prayer, and he was remarkable for the copious, fluent, and fervent manner of performing that sacred exercise. Having acquired a knowledge of medicine, Mr. Thacher united the practice of that profession with his ecclesiastical vocation, in which he was greatly useful. He married the daughter of the Rev. Ralph Partridge, the first minister of Duxbury, who, among other pious ministers, was, to use his own expression, "hunted like a partridge on the mountains," and driven from his native soil to seek an asylum in this land of religious freedom. Mr. Thacher married, for a second wife, a lady belonging to Boston, and became an inhabitant of that town, where he acquired eminence in the medical profession. He was conspicuous as a learned divine; and when the third, or Old South church, was founded, in Boston, he was chosen their first pastor, and installed February 16, 1670, and continued in that

*This journey was a very hazardous one, it being through an unsettled wilderness, and full of Indians.

station till his death, October 15, 1678. Having visited a patient in a fever, he was himself seized with the disease, which terminated his existence at the age of fifty-eight years. President Stiles speaks of Mr. Thacher as the best Arabic scholar known in this country, and states that he composed and published a Hebrew Lexicon. According to Dr. Cotton Mather, he was a great logician, and well versed in mechanics, both in theory and practice, and could make all kinds of clock-work to admiration. In 1677, he published a work entitled a Brief Guide in the Small-pox and Measles, which was the first medical work published in America. Mather says he was a most incomparable scribe; he not only wrote all sorts of hands in the best copy-books then extant, with a singular exactness and acuteness, but there are yet extant monuments of Syriac and other oriental characters, of his writing, which are hardly to be imitated. He left two sons who were by his first wife.

2d Generation. PETER, the eldest son of Thomas, was born July 18, 1651. Graduated at Cambridge college, 1671; was ordained over the church at Milton, June 1, 1681; and died December 27, 1727, aged seventy-seven years, having been the honored and beloved pastor of that church near forty-seven years. He married the daughter of the Rev. John Oxenbridge, pastor of the first church in Boston.

RALPH, the second son, settled in the ministry at Martha's Vineyard; but little is known of his life or death.

3d Generation. PETER, son of Peter, of Milton, was born in that town, October 6, 1688, graduated 1706, ordained at Middleborough, November 2, 1709, and died April 22, 1744, aged fifty-six, having sustained a ministerial character of great respectability, and received a large number of members to his church, during the later years of his ministry. His descendants are numerous, many of them through successive generations, have been educated in the ministry.

PETER THACHER, Jun. son of Ralph, graduated in 1696, ordained at Weymouth, November 26, 1707. Having in 1723 received a call to settle as pastor, of the New North church in Boston, about fifty members of that church and congregation, were dissatisfied, that the invitation should be given to Mr. Thacher, who was then the settled minister of Weymouth, and that he should leave his flock. "They separated from the society, and built a new meeting-house, which received the name of Revenge. At the time they met to install him, the disturbance was so great, that the services could not be regularly performed. After a public declaration of the majority of the society, in the meeting-house, that they accepted Mr. Thacher, the moderator announced him to be their minister, and the meeting broke up." He died March 1, 1739.

OXENBRIDGE THACHER, son of Peter, of Milton, was graduated at Cambridge, 1698. He for many years sustained the office of selectman, in the town of Boston, and representative to the general court, but removed to Milton, his native place, and, for several years, was a representative from that town. He died in 1772, aged ninety-three years. He devoted some part of his early days to the ministry, and preached the first sermon that was delivered to the settlers, at Punk apog, now Stoughton. One of the old settlers of the place, in a kind of rapture, addressed Rev. T. Thacher, of Dedham, upon hearing him preach,-" Your grandfather Oxenbridge, was the first man that brought a bible among us."

4th Generation. His son Oxenbridge graduated at Cambridge college, in 1738, died July 8, 1765, aged forty-five years, and was, at the time of his death, one of the four representatives in the general court for the town of Boston. This gentleman died in the midst of his merited reputation and usefulness, being a lawyer of great eminence, and a learned and able writer. He was distinguished for his patriotic spirit, and amiable moral character, which are still remembered. Governor Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusetts, speaks of him as an active and influential opposer of the measures of Parliament, about the period of the stamp act. His name has frequently been mentioned in terms of high esteem, as a compeer with Adams, Quincy, and Otis. He published two pamphlets; one in 1760, On the gold coin; another 1764, The sentiments of a British American, occasioned by an act to lay certain duties in the British Colonies and Plantations.

PETER THACHER, son of Peter, of Middleboro', was born January 25, 1716, ordained at Attleborough, November 30, 1748. He was the first minister, who preached in the east or second parish in that town, and he preached there about five years previous to his being ordained. "He was one of ten children, and the oldest of seven sons. According to family tradition, he was the fourteenth oldest son, in succession, employed in the work of the gospel ministry,—a remarkable circumstance.' Mr. Thacher, was a man of great simplicity, and plainness of manners, a worthy and useful minister, and his memory is justly revered. "A small volume of his sermons was published some time after his death; but, although the sentiment may be preserved, an unjustifiable liberty was taken with his language. However plain may be the style of a man, no material posthumous alteration ought to take place in preparing his works for the public. Every one appears most natural in his own garb." The only publication extant, so far as the author of this work* knows, which exhibits a fair specimen of Mr. Thacher's common, plain, and impressive manner of sermonizing, is the discourse occasioned by the death of his much-esteemed friend, the Rev. Habijah Weld, of Attleborough. Mr. Thacher continued to be highly useful in the ministry, and contributed greatly to the welfare and prosperity of his people; till, being seized with a palsy, which rendered him unable to perform the duties of his office, he was dismissed by a vote of the parish. He died September, 1785, in the seventieth year of his age, and forty-third of his ministry. He left many sons and daughters.

5th Generation. PETER THACHER, D. D. the eldest son of Oxenbridge, jun. was born in Milton, March 21, 1752, his parents having retired there, on account of the small pox being in Boston. His father died when he was thirteen years old. His juvenile years afforded the highest promise of eminence, as a divine, manifesting in his deportment, an uncommon share of gravity, and a preference of books of piety, and the conversation of religious persons, to childish amusements. He was admitted a student of Harvard college, when a youth, and received his college honors, in the year 1769, at the early age of seventeen years and four months. He soon acquired extraordinary qualifi cations for the duties of the ministry, and no sooner commenced

Alden's Col. Epitaphs.

preaching, than he was desired to supply the pulpit, in Malden, and on September 19, 1770, was ordained pastor over the church in that place. He was afterwards sensible that the time devoted to his education was too limited. He was distinguished for his oratorial powers, and ardor, in the pulpit his voice was peculiarly melodious; and, in his public devotions, his fluency and fervor were so impressive, that he seldom failed to produce general admiration and applause. He was not less remarkable for his colloquial powers, which were admirably adapted to disseminate pleasure and instruction. In early life, Doctor Thacher, was in principle, a rigid Calvinist, and the celebrated Whitefield embraced him as a well-qualified advocate for the cause of Orthodoxy ; but he gradually abated of his rigid tenets, and, in riper years, became catholic and charitable, towards other denominations of Christians; and such was his liberality, such his kind and gentlemanly deportment, that all classes of Christians enjoyed satisfaction and pleasure, in holding intercourse with him. Bigotry and excessive zeal met his unequivocal disapprobation. On the commencement of the controversy between the American colonies and our English ancestry, Dr. Thacher was found among the first of those divines, who, with zeal, espoused the noble cause of freedom. Not satisfied with his exemplary efforts, in the line of his profession, public addresses, and influential conversation, he actually joined a military corps, and shouldered his musket for the combat; but he was not permitted to depart from home, where his services were indispensable. On the 5th of March, 1776, by the request of the people of Boston, he pronounced, at Watertown, the oration against standing armies, which had been annually delivered, in the Old South church, in commemoration of the Boston Massacre. Here his superior talents and brilliant intellectual energies were conspicuous, as on all public occasions allotted to him, in his sphere of useful labors.

When, in the year 1780, a convention assembled to form a constitution for our commonwealth, Dr. Thacher was chosen a member of that honorable body for the town of Malden, and few were more active or more influential. He was afterwards warmly attached to, and a strenuous supporter of, the constitution, and was also among the warmest admirers of the Constitution of the United States.

In 1785, Dr. Thacher became the pastor of Brattle-street church in Boston, where he was installed January 12. The officiating ministers were, the Rev. David Osgood, of Medford, who preached the sermon, Dr. Lathrop, who gave the charge, and Dr. Clark, the right hand of fellowship. In this enlarged sphere of ecclesiastical functions, he acquired much honor and celebrity. The University of Edinburgh honored him with the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and several divines, to whom his character was known, in Europe, manifested their respect for him, by appointing him a member of the Society for propagating the gospel among the Indians in North-America. He was an active member of this Board, and also of the society connected with it, and was for several years their secretary. He was one of the earliest members of the Historical Society, and one of its committee for publications. He was also elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of almost all the literary and charitable institutions existing in New-England; in all which his industry and influence were conspicu

ous and impressive. He was uncommonly well versed in the history of his own and foreign countries, both civil and ecclesiastical, and possessed a large share of puritanical zeal, ever opposed to prelatic power, and an ardent advocate for the support of good New-England principles. He was a man of singular integrity, urbane and courteous in manners, facetious in conversation, and fond of anecdote. As a friend, he was affectionate, kind, and benevolent.

In the year 1802, Dr. Thacher, finding his health on the decline, and a pulmonary complaint becoming alarming, was, by advice of physicians, induced to repair to the state of Georgia, with the hope of deriving benefit from a milder climate: his people anxious to contribute all in their power to his relief, cheerfully defrayed the expense of the voyage; but such was the rapid progress of his disease, that he died in the city of Savannah, on the 16th December, about six weeks after leaving Boston. Whether abroad among strangers, or at home surrounded by familiar friends, Dr. Thacher constantly received marks of respect and sympathy, and the most cordial affection, in life and in death; and his character has been eulogized, both in prose and verse. "The father and grandfather of Dr. Thacher had been preachers of the gospel before they entered other professions. An old lady of Milton recollected hearing sermons from Thachers of five generations, in direct succession. Mr. Thacher, of Milton, his son, and grandson Oxenbridge; the late Dr. Thacher and his son, the minister of Lynn; beside collateral branches of the family." It may be added, that there has never been a time since the first Thomas and Anthony, without ministers in New-England bearing the name of Thacher.

Rev. THOMAS THACHER, brother of the last-named, graduated in 1775, was ordained pastor of the second church and society at Dedham. He was a man of sound understanding, respectable in his profession, liberal in his views, and in good fellowship with his Christian brethren. He was not polished in manners, nor did he possess partiality enough for the other sex to enter into the connubial state. He spent his life with his people, and died lamented, October, 1812, aged fifty-six.

NATHANIEL THACHER, brother of the above, was a subaltern officer in the American army. He died a bachelor.

6th Generation. THOMAS C. THACHER graduated 1790. PETER O. THACHER, present judge of the municipal court, at Boston, graduated 1796. CHARLES THACHER, of Boston, who died, of pulmonary complaint, on the 18th of May, 1833, aged forty-five years. He was an honorable merchant, and died greatly lamented. Sons of Rev. Peter Thacher, D. D.

SAMUEL C. THACHER, brother of the above, was born 14th December, 1785. From early life he exhibited those qualities of mind which are so very desirable in a teacher of religion, and in riper years he determined to enter a profession which his fathers before him had followed and adorned. He was admitted a student at the university in Cambridge, in the year 1800, and was graduated with its highest honors in 1804. He immediately commenced his theological studies in Boston, and enjoyed the valuable privilege of having them directed by the Rev. Dr. Channing. In the year 1806, he accompanied his friend, the Rev. Mr. Buckminster, on a voyage to Europe. Soon after his return, he accepted the office of Librarian of Harvard College, and entered on