Greenbrier County, West Virginia Biography of WILLIAM REYNOLDS THACHER This file was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 481 Greenbrier WILLIAM REYNOLDS THACHER. An educator with a mis- sion and with high ideals and ideas as to the sort of service the schools and their teachers ought to render the youth of a modern community is the superintendent of schools at Davis. Mr. Thacher's personal education is the product of some of the best schools and universities in the land, but more important than his formal scholarship are the energy and resourcefulness he brings to bear in handling all the problems connected with teaching and school administration. Mr. Thacher was born at Williamsburg, Greenbrier County, West Virginia, October 3, 1885. His father was a prominent physician, Dr. Charles A. Thacher. He was born at Poughkeepsie, New York, was one of the early graduates of the Jefferson Medical College of Philadel- phia, and served as a Federal surgeon in the Civil war, being with General Meade's troops at Gettysburg. He practiced for a long period of years in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, and. died at his home in Williamsburg in 1893, at the age of eighty-four. He was honored with the office of state senator from Greenbrier County in 1867, representing the Ninth Senatorial District. He was a re- publican and a Methodist. Doctor Thacher was three timea married. His first wife was a Miss Wilson, and the sur- viving. children of that union are Mrs. Luch W. Upham, of St. Petersburg, Florida; Mrs. Mattie Hovey, of the same city, whose husband was at one time member of the faculty of the old college at St. Albans, West Virginia, and Mrs. Mary McClintic, of Ohio. W. R. Thacher, of Davis, is the only child of his father's third marriage. His mother, still living at St. Petersburg, Florida, bore the maiden name of Sarah C. Lovern. She was born in Floyd County, Virginia, and her father, William Lovern, was a Union soldier in the Civil war. William R. Thacher lived on his father's farm near Wil- liamsburg, and attended the village schools there and did his preparatory work in Morgantowii. This was followed by the regular university course and he graduated A. B. in 1911. He was a member of the Columbia Literary Society at Morgantown. Before completing his university course Mr. Thacher began teaching in the schools of his native town in 1909. After graduation he was principal of the Belington High School one year, was teacher of science in the Moundsville High School a year and for two years had charge of the department of history in the high school at Benwood. After these four years as a teacher he entered the Univer- sity of Chicago, where he pursued postgraduate work, re- ceiving the Master of Arts degree in 1916. He then taught history in Marshall College at Huntington, but resigned to take another year of postgraduate study in history and social science at the University of Chicago, where he had a library fellowship. Supplementing his work at the Uni- versity of Chicago, he did considerable research work in the history of West Virginia, and one of the theses he presented as a test of his scholarship was on the Pierpont Government of Virginia, treating the provisional govern- ment of the western counties before the organization of the new State of West Virginia. On leaving Chicago Mr. Thacher became principal of the high school at Paxton, Illinois, but a year later re- turned to West Virginia and has since been superintendent of schools at Davis. Since coming here he has done much to modernize and stimulate interest in the general school work, and has introduced such subjects as vocational guid- ance, sanitation, chemistry, botany, and has emphasized project work rather than the formal teaching from text- books. Another popular feature he has introduced has been a lyceum project. The teaching force of the Davis public schools are twenty in number, including one colored teacher. In the work of teachers meetings and educational asso- ciations Mr. Thacher has always taken an active part, and is a member of the First Teachers Association organ- ized by a county in the state, that of Tucker County. He has also participated in some of the programs of the West Virginia State Teachers Association, and is a member of the National Educational Association. During a portion of the World war and while at Paxton, Illinois, Mr. Thacher organized the boys working reserve and he also organized and drilled a company of high school boys, some of whom later were called into the regular service and found the preliminary training valuable to them. He was connected with and did much to inspire an interest in Virginia Red Cross work. Mr. Thacher as a student of history and political science has studied political questions of the present day, and has acted independently in politics. He is a member of the Methodist Church and interested in the Sunday School. At Morgantown, June 24, 1913, he and Miss Mary Gray Knapp were married by Dr. Charles K. Jenness, now a prominent pastor of the City of Boston. Miss Knapp was born and reared in Greenbrier County, and is a graduate of the Fairmont Normal School, did work in West Vir- ginia University and the University of Chicago, and for several years was a teacher. Her last work was done in the Davis High School. Mr. and Mrs. Thacher have one son, William Reynolds, Jr., born in Paxton, Illinois, No- vember 5, 1917.