Hines, H. K. "An Illustrated History of the State of Oregon." Chicago: Lewis
Pub. Co. 1893.  p. 1234.
 
WILLIAM WALLACE THAYER

     ex-Governor of the State of Oregon, is a native of New York State, and was
born in Lima, Livingston county, of that State, on July 15, 1827. His father
Gideon Thayer, was a native of Rhode Island. His paternal grandfather, Gideon
Thayer, was a soldier in the Revolution, and the ancestor of the family came to
America from England in the early colonial times. Governor Thayer's father
married Miss Annie Dodge, a native of New York, and a daughter of Daniel Dodge.
They had seven children, five sons and two daughters, of whom our subject is the
only surviving son. He was raised in western New York on his father's farm, was
educated in the common schools and read law under the instruction of Truman
Hastings, a leading lawyer of Rochester, New York. In March, 1851, he was
admitted to the bar in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, in the city
of Rochester. He practiced law in Tonawanda and Buffalo, New York, until the
Spring of 1862, when he emigrated to Oregon, where he practiced for a year to
Corvallis, Benton county. In the summer of 1863 he removed to Lewiston, Idaho
Territory, where he practiced four years. During his stay in Idaho he was
elected District Attorney, and was also elected to the Legislature in 1866ö'67.
From Idaho, he came to Portland, Oregon, where he has since resided and
practiced law. In 1878 he was nominated by the Democratic party, at the head of
their ticket, for Governor. He ad dressed the people upon the issue of an
economical administration of the State Government, and notwithstanding the State
was Republican, he was elected by forty majority, and during his term of office,
he fulfilled to the letter the pledges he had made to the citizens of the State.
In 1884 Le was elected Judge of the Supreme Court, and served his term of six
years in a manner which was highly gratifying to himself and friends, rendering
his decisions in a calm, quiet way, and strictly in accordance with the law and
the evidence, actuated by the highest honor and utmost impartiality.
     He was married on the 11th of November, 1852, to Miss Samantha C. Vincent,
of Tonawanda, New York, a daughter of Rev. J. Vincent, a Baptist clergyman. They
have an only son, Claude, who is a lawyer, residing in Tillamook, Oregon, where
be is engaged in banking. Governor Thayer owns fourteen acres of land at
Woodstock, where, on a beautiful site, overlooking the city of Portland, he
built, in 1889, a beautiful home, planting the grounds to a variety of fruit and
ornamental trees and shrubs. In this attractive abode, he resides with her who
has shared his joys and sorrows for forty years.
     He has been a Mason for more than forty years, of which fraternity he is a
prominent and honored member. He is a Democrat, politically, to which cause he
has been a life-long adherent, though not a partisan, nor engaging actively in
political affairs. Kind-hearted, generous, public-spirited, liberal, unassuming,
the embodiment of honor and fidelity, he is universally beloved and respected.

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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in October 2008 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.