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| Lyman Thayer | |
| Born | 1836, Massachusetts |
|---|---|
| Died | 1904, Briarmont |
| Worked for | Hartwell Timber Co. |
| Occupation | Clerk and timekeeper, paymaster, treasurer |
Lyman Thayer, the first of the Thayers in Briarmont, came out from Massachusetts in 1859 to be clerk and timekeeper at the Hartwell camp, which by then had more men than Elias Hartwell could keep track of in his head. The company's earliest surviving time book is in Lyman's hand. Each page gives a man's name, his days worked, his days lost to rain and anything stopped from his pay, down to the dollar Amos Tuttle lost for a broken axe handle.
When the mill began cutting in 1862 and Orrin Lathrop opened his store on the mill road, Lyman became the company's paymaster. On payday he settled each man's store account with Lathrop first and paid out whatever was left. Many of the fallers signed for their wages with a mark.
He married Lavinia Pratt, and their son Everett was born in 1866. By the 1880s Lyman was the company's treasurer, keeping its accounts with the San Francisco buyers and the banks. He never worked a day in the woods, and the crews knew him mostly from the pay table.
He died in 1904, still treasurer, with Everett running the mill.