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CLASS OF 1808
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“It is important our officers should gain a knowledge of the European Military
Establishments, their fortifications, Mil’y Schools & Military Work Shops; to those objects
I presume the enquiries of . . . Capt. Thayer would be diverted, & also to the collection of rare
books, maps, plans and instruments for the Military Academy.”
—Brig. Gen. Joseph G. Swift (Class of 1802) to Secretary of War James Monroe,
April 1815
Thayer had already graduated from Dartmouth College before attending West Point.
Commissioned in the Corps of Engineers, he worked on coastal fortifications in New York and New
England. He served as a staff officer in the War of 1812, rising from second lieutenant to major.
After the war, Thayer embarked on a two-year inspection tour of European military schools and
installations, returning in 1817 to become superintendent at West Point. The educational and
administrative reforms he initiated during his sixteen-year tenure created a preeminent school of
engineering, making him remembered ever after as “the father of the Military Academy.”
Thayer resigned as superintendent in 1833 but remained an army engineer, working on harbor
improvements in New England. He retired in 1863 with the rank of brigadier general. In 1867 the
lifelong bachelor endowed the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College and designed the
new school’s curriculum.
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