Samuel Cooper Thacher

Background

He was born in Boston, in 1785, the sixth son of Peter Thacher, 1752-1802, and Elizabeth (Hawkes), widow of Zachariah Poole.

Education

From the Public Latin School he went to Harvard in 1800, and was graduated with highest honors in 1804. The most important influence in his early life was the friendship and tutelage of William Ellery Channing.

Career

After his graduation, he began to teach. In 1805 he was the acting headmaster of the Latin School and would probably have continued happily in that position had not the illness of his close friend, the Rev. Joseph Stevens Buckminster of the Brattle Street Church, Boston, intervened. Buckminster, who suffered from epilepsy, was ordered abroad by his physicians, and as he needed a companion-nurse, Thacher volunteered to accompany him. The two spent the greater part of 1806 in Europe.

Thacher's letters during this trip are of general interest. Paris he found "the centre of everything but goodness"; at St. Cloud he had a sight of Napoleon. Traveling in desultory fashion, he visited many libraries and universities on the Continent. In 1808 he became librarian of Harvard College. John T. Kirkland, pastor of the New South Church in Boston, was called to the presidency of the College in 1810, and although Thacher had not been prominent as a theologian, his interest in theology and his wide knowledge of the subject brought about his nomination to the vacant pastorate.

On May 15, 1811, he was formally installed. In his sermon on this occasion he voiced professedly Unitarian sentiments, expressing "a belief of the principles of natural religion, and a general acceptance of the truths of Christianity. " Subsequently he developed the system of the single personality of God, and some of his discourses, notably An Apology for Rational and Evangelical Christianity (1815) and The Unity of God, are among the ablest sermonic defenses of Unitarianism which up to that time had appeared in America.

He had inherited tubercular tendencies, and from 1814 until his death, his work was constantly impeded by ill health. At the request of his parishioners he went to England to consult the King's physician in 1815, never to return. After a brief rally he had a series of hemorrhages and the physician dispatched him immediately to Capetown. Here he found that some of his speculations on the dignity of the human race had never received so severe a rebuke as when he looked in the face of a Hottentot. Here, also, he failed to make a recovery.

On June 25, 1817, he returned to London, after a stormy voyage of three and one-half months which robbed him of the little strength he had left. He was sent immediately to France, and on January 2, 1818, died at Moulins.

Achievements

• With William E. Channing, Charles Lowell, and Joseph Tuckerman, he helped to found, in 1813, The Christian Disciple (later The Christian Examiner). He wrote a memoir of Joseph S. Buckminster, prefixed to the first collection of Buckminster's sermons (1814), and one of William Emerson. Among his other publications may be mentioned On the Evidence Necessary to Establish the Doctrine of the Trinity (1828), the substance of which, under a somewhat different title, was first appended to James Yates's A Vindication of Unitarianism (1816). A collection of Thacher's discourses, Sermons with a Memoir by F. W. P. Greenwood, appeared in 1824.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Sermons

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • An Apology for Rational and Evangelical Christianity.: A Discourse at the Dedication of A New Church on Church Green, Summer Street, Boston. To Which Are Added Notes and Illustrations.

Membership

He was a member of the Anthology Club, and made frequent contributions to the Monthly Anthology, which he edited from November 1805 to May 1806.

Connections

Father:

Peter Thacher

Mother:

Elizabeth (Hawkes)

Friend:

William Ellery Channing