Timothy D. Thacher, a prominent editor and public man of Lawrence and Kansas City, was born in New York, October 31, 1831, of that famous Boston family, whose American founder was Rev. Thomas Thacher, pastor of the Old South Church. He graduated from Union College at Schenectady, New York, in 1856, and campaigned that year on the platform of the new republican party. In April, 1857, he came to Lawrence and began the publication of the Lawrence Republican, a free-state paper which figured prominently in state politics. He was a member of the Leavenworth constitutional convention held in the wintor of 1857 and 1858. In 1863 he purchased the Journal of Commerce in Kansas City, to which place he moved, remaining there until 1865, when he disposed of the paper and went to Philadelphia. He was on the staff of the Evening Telegram for the next three years. In 1868 he returned to Lawrence and revived the Lawrence Republican, which had been destroyed by Quantrill’s raid. The next year he combined it with the Kansas State Journal of Ottawa and the Ottawa Home Journal under the name of the Republican Daily Journal. Mr. Thacher was sent to the House of Representatives of the Legislature in 1874 and in 1881 was elected state printer. He continued in that office for three terms, and after his retirement continued to reside in Topeka until his death January 17, 1894.
