Martin Russell Thayer | |
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| Member of theUnited States House of Representatives fromPennsylvania's 5th congressional district | |
| In office March 4, 1863 – March 4, 1867 | |
| Preceded by | William Morris Davis |
| Succeeded by | Caleb Newbold Taylor |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Martin Russell Thayer (1819-01-27)January 27, 1819 |
| Died | October 14, 1906(1906-10-14) (aged 87) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Political party | Republican |
| Occupation | Attorney, Politician |
| Signature | .jpg) |
Martin Russell Thayer (January 27, 1819 – October 14, 1906) was an American lawyer and politician who served two terms as aRepublican member of theU.S. House of Representatives from the U.S. commonwealth ofPennsylvania from 1863 to 1867.
His grandnephew wasJohn B. Thayer, who died on thesinking of the RMSTitanic.
Martin Russell Thayer was born inDinwiddie County, Virginia near the city limits ofPetersburg. He attended the Mount Pleasant Classical Institute inAmherst, Massachusetts andAmherst College. He moved with his father toPhiladelphia in 1837. He graduated from theUniversity of Pennsylvania in 1840. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1842, and commenced practice in Philadelphia.
Thayer was a commissioner to revise the revenue laws of Pennsylvania in 1862.
He was elected as a Republican to theThirty-eighth andThirty-ninth Congresses, during which he served on the committee on the bankrupt law and was the chairman of theUnited States House Committee on Private Land Claims. He declined to be a candidate for re-election in1866, and resumed the practice of law.
While in Congress, Thayer criticized the use of portraits of living persons on US currency, suggesting that the Treasury's privilege of portrait selection for currency[1] was being abused.[nb 1] Spearheaded by Thayer,[3] on April 7, 1866 Congress enacted legislation specifically stating "that no portrait or likeness of any living person hereafter engraved, shall be placed upon any of the bonds, securities, notes, fractional or postal currency of the United States."[4]
Thayer was judge of the district court of Philadelphia from 1867 to 1874, and served as president judge of the court of common pleas of Philadelphia from 1874 until his resignation in 1896. In 1873 he was appointed on the board of visitors toWest Point, and wrote the report. (Some 40 years earlier, his cousinSylvanus Thayer had been superintendent of West Point.) He was elected as a member to theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1877.[5] He was elected by the judges of the common pleas court prothonotary of Philadelphia in 1896. He also engaged in literary pursuits.
He died in Philadelphia in 1906 and is buried in the churchyard ofChurch of St. James the Less inPhiladelphia.
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| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromPennsylvania's 5th congressional district 1863–1867 | Succeeded by |
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