Thayer Memorial Library

The Thayer Memorial Library’s roots reach back to the late 1700’s when its predecessor, the Lancaster Library (later renamed the Lancaster Social Library), was first established. Membership cost 3 dollars and required a two-thirds vote of the current proprietors to join. It was not until 1862 when Lancaster residents first established the Town’s foremost, tax-supported and free public library – then named the Lancaster Town Library. That the necessary tax appropriation was made for this purpose despite the political, human and economic costs inflicted by the Civil War says much about the prevailing sense of values and priorities in Lancaster at that time. Soon after the war in 1868, Memorial Hall was erected commemorating Lancaster’s Civil War Dead whose names can still be read on the marble tablet located in what is now the Library’s reference room. Two thirds of the building’s $30,000 cost to construct was bestowed by Nathaniel Thayer II, who is also credited as giving the Library’s first permanent endowment in 1866.

From its beginning, the existence and operation of the Lancaster Town Library has been a peculiar product of a combination of steadfast public support and plain, old-fashioned Yankee economy. The Library’s earliest collection was primarily comprised of volumes donated from the Library Club of Lancaster, Lancaster Agricultural Library and several of Lancaster’s school district libraries. When the Library was opened to the town in October of 1862 its collection numbered no less that 1200 volumes. George M. Bartol, chairman of the Library Committee (later renamed the Board of Library Trustees) for forty years succinctly expressed Lancaster’s cost-effective approach toward funding the Library by stating, “…no part of our public expenditure does or can, all things considered, bring back a richer return”.

As the collections grew and their use increased over time the Library would continue to rely on the generous and often timely contributions made by many notable Lancaster residents throughout its history. In particular were several significant donations made by members of the Thayer family dating from the Library’s inception through its latest major renovation and addition begun in 1998. In 1888 Nathaniel, Eugene V.R., John Eliot, and Bayard Thayer provided the funding for the first expansion and renovation of the library building. Book stacks were added and the building’s entry and façade were augmented in memory of their father, Nathaniel Thayer. In 1929, Mrs. Bayard Thayer provided funds for the construction of the Library’s first Children’s Room in memory of her son Nathaniel Thayer II. In later years, Mrs. Constance V. R. Dexter provided the first special facility to house the Library’s manuscripts and rare book collection. Most recently, Nathaniel Thayer Dexter provided generously toward the Library’s renovation and expansion which included the environmentally monitored Constance V. R. Dexter Special Collections Room, a Reference wing and two meeting spaces. It was after his untimely death in 1999 that the Board of Trustees rededicated the newly renovated Library as the Thayer Memorial Library.