Author: Thacher, William
Biography:
THACHER, William (1769-1856: Warriner)
Thacher was born in Norwalk CT, one of the three sons of Mary (Street) and Daniel Thacher, who were Congregationalists. As a child it was his ambition to be a clergyman. Both parents died when he was eight, however, and the uncle who had planned to adopt him and send him to Yale also died, with the result that Thacher was largely self-educated. He was trained as a tailor in New Haven, then in 1788 moved to New York, where he began to attend Episcopal Methodist services. In 1792 he returned to New Haven, where he married his first wife, Anna Munson (d 1807), and became a local leader among the Methodists. He was ordained deacon in 1799 and elder in 1801. In 1797 he embarked on his long career as a circuit preacher in Connecticut and New York State, with noted success at camp meetings and with a good record at building churches for growing congregations. He was based mainly in Brooklyn. After the death of his first wife, in Dec. 1808 he married Martha Oakley (d 1848). From the two marriages he had four children altogether, two sons and two daughters. He retired from preaching in 1845 and spent his remaining years in Poughkeepsie, where he died. His other writings are few: some sermons, a tract entitled Methodism Vindicated (1803), and an autobiography written about 1850 which remained unpublished but which Warriner was able to draw on for his account of Thacher's career. (ancestry.com 19 Nov. 2020; Edwin Warriner, Old Sands Street Methodist Episcopal Church, of Brooklyn [1885] 155-63) HJ