Peter Thacher was an American theologian and clergyman.
Background
Thacher was born in Salem, Massachussets, in July 18, 1651. He was the youngest son of the Rev. Thomas Thacher, who came to America in 1635, and Eliza (Partridge) Thacher. A direct descendant of the first Peter Thacher to take the cloth in Sarum, England, during the time of the Puritan ascendancy, he inherited a tendency to the ministry.
Education
In 1671 he graduated from Harvard College, where his social position had been unusually advantageous owing to the friendship between his father and President Chauncy.
Career
After his graduation he became a tutor in the college, numbering Cotton Mather among his charges. On June 15, 1674, he was appointed a fellow. He appears to have extended his interests beyond theology, for contemporaries refer to his skill in medicine and civil law. During a visit to England in 1676 he manifested great interest in medical practice. Upon his return he accepted a call to Barnstable, where he preached until invited to the Milton parish.
He records in his journal how he was escorted out of Barnstable in September 1680 by fifty-seven horsemen, to make the journey to Milton; after nine months' trial he accepted the post and was installed on June 1, 1681. Here he continued until his death. His journal, which was begun in Barnstable in 1679 and kept for the better part of three years, attests to his scholarship. He began each day by reading three chapters in the Greek version of the New Testament.
That Thacher was prosperous is indicated by the disposal, in his will, of an unusually large number of slaves. His Milton home was built in an Indian cornfield, which later came to be known as "Thacher's Plain. "
He acquired enough knowledge of the Indian language to propagate the gospel among the natives in Milton and Ponkapoag. A further example of his missionary work is found in a Letter, published in 1721 in the form of a broadside (Harvard College Library), to procure funds for the erection of a church in Providence. Owing to his widespread activity he was proposed, in the draft of the college charter for 1723, as vice-president of Harvard under John Leverett, but failing health forced him to decline.
After forty-six years of service as pastor of the Milton church, he died on December 17, 1727.
Achievements
Religion
In theological teaching, he followed the Calvinistic doctrine with slight modification.
Connections
On November 21, 1677, he married Theodora, daughter of the Rev. John Oxenbridge, and by her had nine children. She died on November 18, 1697, and on December 25, 1699, he married Susannah, widow of the Rev. John Bailey (or Bayley). She bore him one son, and died in 1724. A few months before his own death he married a second cousin, Elizabeth (Thacher) Gee, widow of Joshua Gee, of Boston.