Thayer, Asahel

Born: 1790-02-10 Amherst, Massachusetts

Died: 1877-10-27 Taylorville, Illinois

Flourished: Waverly, Illinois

In May 1813, Thayer married Mary Cannon, with whom he had eleven children. Business failures prompted Thayer to move his family to Chatham, Illinois, in 1839, and in 1846, he moved to Morgan County, Illinois, settling in Waverly. In 1850, he was a merchant living in Morgan County. By 1860, he was living in Waverly, operating a furniture store, and owned real estate valued at $5,000 and had a personal estate of $1,200. A devoted Christian, Thayer was a life member of the American Bible Society.

Gravestone, Slab-Row 3, Waverly East Cemetery, Waverly, IL; John Carroll Power and S. A. Power, History of the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois (Springfield, IL: Edwin A. Wilson, 1876), 710; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Morgan County, IL, 353; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Waverly, Morgan County, IL, 253; Forty-Fourth Annual Report of the American Bible Society (New York: American Bible Society, 1860), 277.