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Submitted by Cheryl VanWormer


				ISAAC H. AND ELIZA A. (COOPER) THAYER

	This gentleman was born in Oxford Co., Me., Aug. 22, 1823, and is the youngest of three 
children born to John and Susannah (Hersey) Thayer.  John Thayer, a veteran of the war of 1812, 
was born in Randolph, Mass., in 1787, and died in 1853.  He wife was born at Minot, Me., in 1792,
and was descended from a family of pioneers.  She was one of eleven children, and not a death 
occurred among them until the youngest was fifty-six years of age.  John Thayer was by occupation
a farmer.
	I. H. Thayer lived at home until he was nineteen years of age, acquiring such education 
as he could in the district school, aside from the greater advantages afforded by the village 
academy, which together gave him a good practical education, such as business men need.  When a 
young man he went to North Bridgewater, where he remained seven years, acquiring during the time 
a good knowledge of music.  Going from there to Boston, he entered a musical establishment and 
continued the study of this most pleasing science, imparting, also, a knowledge of it to others. 
About 1852 he took up his residence in Bridgeport, remaining two years, returning thence to 
Boston.  Nov. 4, 1856, he was married, in the latter city, to Miss Eliza A. Cooper, a native of 
Paris, Me., where she was born March 28, 1826.  Upon the day after their marriage they started 
for Wisconsin.  Mr. Thayer engaged in mercantile business at Dartford for a year, and removed 
from there to Beloit, where he became interested in the shoe business.  In 1860 he came to Ionia,
where for the subsequent twenty years he has been engaged in mercantile business.  Their children
are Walter Hersey Thayer, Minnie Belle Thayer, and Jennie Leone Thayer.



This biography is taken from "HISTORY OF IONIA AND MONTCALM COUNTIES, MICHIGAN"
 by John S. Schenck. Philadelphia:  D. W. Ensign & Co., 1881.  Pages 165.