[5] His father, a banker in the Boston firm of John E. Thayer and Brother,[6] was fellow of Harvard and one of its largest benefactors.

Through is father, he was descended from John Cotton, the preeminent minister and theologian of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

He served as vice president of the North Chicago Rolling Mill Company[1] He was also a member of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Gen. who died during the Battle of Gettysburg and was the grandson and namesake of Revolutionary War patriot Paul Revere), on June 11, 1887.

Pauline was a member of the Republican National Committee in 1924, "and was looked upon as advisor and confidante of both Presidents Coolidge and Hoover."

He added two new wings to The Homestead which “has virtually been unchanged since 1902” [20] Thayer died at his home, 22 Fairfield Street in Boston (in the Back Bay neighborhood), on March 21, 1911,[1] after suffering from a "general nervous breakdown.

Through his eldest daughter, he was the maternal grandfather of Count Carl Adam Moltke (1908–1989), a member of the Danish underground in World War II,[22] who married Mabel Wilson Wright (née Comstock) in 1944 (1909–1988).