John B. Thayer
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John Borland Thayer II (April 21, 1862April 15, 1912) was an American businessman who had a thirty-year career as an executive with the
Pennsylvania Railroad Company The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...
. He was a director and second vice-president of the company when he died less than a week before his 50th birthday in the sinking of the , on April 15, 1912. In his youth, Thayer was also a prominent sportsman, playing
baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...
and
lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensiv ...
for the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
and
first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...
for the
Philadelphian cricket team The Philadelphian cricket team was a team that represented Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in first-class cricket between 1878 and 1913. Even with the United States having played the first ever international cricket match against Canada in 1844, t ...
. He is the only first-class cricketer known to have died aboard ''Titanic''.


Early life and cricket career

Thayer was born in
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
and attended the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
, where he was captain of the lacrosse team in 1879 and played baseball. A member of a prominent American cricketing family, he played his first match for the
Merion Cricket Club Merion Cricket Club is a private club in Haverford, Pennsylvania, founded in 1865. The current clubhouse is its sixth, the last four having been designed by Philadelphia architect Frank Furness and his partner, Allen Evans, who was also a founder ...
as a 14-year-old and continued playing for them until his death. Thayer was a part of the Philadelphian side that visited England in 1884. During that tour, he scored only 1 run, with an average of 28, and took 22 wickets for 21 runs each. In his career, Thayer appeared in seven matches now recognised as first-class matches. Three of these were played for the Philadelphians, and four were played for an "American-born" side. All were played at the
Germantown Cricket Club The Germantown Cricket Club is a cricket club in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It was one of the four principal cricket clubs in the city and was one of the clubs contributing members to the Philadelphian cricke ...
in
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
. In his first-class career, he scored 138 runs at 11.50 and took six wickets at 26.83. His highest score (24) and best bowling (3 for 17) both came for Philadelphia against the United States in October 1883. In minor cricket, his highest scores were 134 not out v Philadelphia in 1896 and 107 not out against Winnipeg in 1882, both for Merion CC.


Family

On November 9, 1892, in Philadelphia, he married Marian Longstreth Morris (1872–1944), the daughter of Frederick Wistar Morris and Elizabeth Flower Paul. Both her parents were descendants of old-moneyed Philadelphia families. They had four children: * John "Jack" Borland Thayer III (1894–1945) * Frederick Morris Thayer (1896–1956) * Margaret Thayer (1898–1960) (Mrs. Harold Elstner Talbott Jr.) * Pauline Thayer (1901–1981) (Mrs. Henry Hoffman Dolan) Thayer's wife, Marian, boarded one of the lifeboats as a First Class passenger and survived the ''Titanic's'' sinking. Of the four children, only Jack accompanied his parents on the ill-fated vessel. A 17-year old at the time, he survived by jumping into the freezing water and swimming to an overturned lifeboat just as the ship went under.


Pennsylvania Railroad career

After leaving the University of Pennsylvania in 1881, Thayer entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad as a clerk in the Empire Line office, remaining in that position for about eighteen months, when he was transferred to the general freight department. After holding various positions in 1888 he was appointed freight solicitor of the United Railroads of New Jersey division. From February, 1889, to May, 1892, Thayer was out of railway work before returning to the PRR in May, 1892, as division freight agent of the Northern Central, with headquarters at Baltimore, MD. On December 1, 1894, he was promoted to assistant general freight agent, with office at Philadelphia, Pa., and in March, 1897, was made general freight agent in charge of through traffic. In May 1899, he was appointed general freight agent also of the Northern Central, the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore, and the West Jersey & Seashore. Thayer was elected fifth vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad June 1, 1903, becoming manager of traffic on that road. In October, 1905, Thayer was promoted to fourth vice-president; in March, 1909, third vice-president; and, in March, 1911, second-vice president, his ultimate rank at the company. At the time of his death Mr. Thayer was a senior director of the Pennsylvania Railroad, managing the railroad's busiest operations east of Pittsburgh, including those of the Long Island and the New York Connecting roads. Thayer was also director and president of the Erie & Western Transport Union Company as well as a director on the Norfolk & Western and the Leigh & Hudson River roads. He was a member of a large number of prestigious clubs and organizations, including the Philadelphia Club, the Union League and the Union Club of New York, the Metropolitan Club of Washington. D. C, the Railroad Club of New York, and the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York. A minute adopted by the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad after his death said in part:


The ''Titanic''

In the spring of 1912 Thayer and his family had been in Europe as guests of the American
Consul General A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, as well as to facilitate trade and friendship between the people ...
in
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
,
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. On April 10 the family boarded the at Cherbourg-en-Cotentin as first-class passengers and had been preparing for bed on the evening of April 14 when the collision with the iceberg occurred. As the ship sank, Thayer made sure his wife and maid boarded lifeboats, after being told by the ''Titanic's'' designer,
Thomas Andrews Thomas Andrews Jr. (7 February 1873 – 15 April 1912) was a British businessman and shipbuilder. He was managing director and head of the drafting department of the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff in Belfast, Ireland. He was the nava ...
, that the stricken ship did not have "much over an hour to live". His son Jack dove from the sinking ship and was able to swim to an overturned collapsible boat, where he also survived. However, Thayer Sr. made it clear that he had no intention of boarding a boat, and he remained on the ''Titanic'' as it sank. When all of the lifeboats were gone, one eyewitness reportedly saw Thayer looking "pale and determined by the midship rail aft of lifeboat 7." A short while later, he had gone, so it is likely that he moved to the stern like many other passengers and crew. Initially, the British media had reported that Thayer had survived the sinking, due to confusion between Thayer and his son.Croudy, p. 17. Thayer's body, if recovered, was never identified.


See also

*
Passengers of the RMS Titanic A total of 2,208 people sailed on the maiden voyage of the RMS ''Titanic'', the second of the White Star Line's ''Olympic''-class ocean liners, from Southampton, England, to New York City. Partway through the voyage, the ship struck an icebe ...


Sources

* Croudy, B. "Cricket in Philadelphia – The Great Families", ''The Cricket Statistician'', No. 113, Spring 2001. The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians; West Bridgford, Nottingham.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Thayer, John 1862 births 1912 deaths 19th-century American railroad executives American cricketers Cricketers from Philadelphia Pennsylvania Railroad Pennsylvania Railroad people Philadelphian cricketers Thayer family Deaths on the RMS Titanic University of Pennsylvania alumni Penn Quakers baseball players Penn Quakers lacrosse