Adin Thayer was born in the town of Mendon, in the County of Worcester, December 5, 1828. His birthplace was near Chestnut Hill, in the territory which was incorporated into the town of Blackstone in 1845. He was the son of Caleb Thayer and Hannah, the daughter of Peter Gaskill of Mendon. His ancestors, so far as known, in all the line of descent, were New England farmers. No better race ever existed for the development of the highest intellectual and moral quality. They wrung a difficult livelihood from the soil and forest. They were educated by the responsibilities of self-government. They were accustomed to meditate and discuss with each other the profoundest questions of theology and of the State. Their local traditions had made them familiar with a stimulant and heroic history, in which every family had borne its share. In these Puritan communities life was a perpetual gymnasium. At the time of Mr. Thayer's birth, the strictness of the Puritan manners had softened somewhat. A milder theology was slowly making its way, but the race which settled in New England still remained without a tincture of any foreign element. The town was one of the oldest in Worcester County. In every generation it had contained men of large influence in the Commonwealth, who had kept alive the interest of the people in public affairs. Jonathan Russell, who, with Adams, Bayard, Clay and Gallatin, negotiated the treaty of Ghent, and who met rather an ignominious defeat afterward in an attempt to measure lances with John Quincy Adams; the Hastings family, three of whom were eminent lawyers, two of them having represented the district in Congress; were of a generation that passed from the stage at about the time of Judge Thayer's birth. The people were fond of discussing public questions, not only in town meeting, but in neighborhood gatherings and debating societies. The Judge used often to tell of the eager interest with which in his boyhood he listened to these encounters. There were two men, one of whom survived until Judge Thayer came to manhood, the other of whom died recently in an honored old age, who were less known abroad than those I have named, but who exerted a powerful influence upon the community and upon the character of the observant and impressible boy. One of them was Dan Hill, the other the Reverend Adin Ballou.