M. Russell (Martin Russell) Thayer

Born in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, in 1819, he later moved with his father to Philadelphia and studied at Amherst College and the University of Pennsylvania. After being admitted to the bar in 1842, he began practicing law in Philadelphia and quickly became part of the city's public life.

During the Civil War era, he served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, from 1863 to 1867, as a Republican. While in Congress, he chaired the House Committee on Private Land Claims, and he is often noted for pushing the measure that stopped the use of portraits of living people on United States currency.

After leaving Congress, he returned to the law and went on to serve as a judge in Philadelphia, including as president judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He remained active in the legal world for decades and died in Philadelphia in 1906.