Most Worshipful Brother Thomas Taylor Minor was born on February 20, 1844, in Manepy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) an island country in South Asia, located about 31 kilometres (19.3 mi) off the southern coast of India. He was a son of Eastman Strong Minor, who was descended from an old and esteemed Connecticut family. Eastman Minor was a successful printer. He closed his printing business and left Boston, Massachusetts , with his first wife, Lucy Bailey, in October 1833 as Congregational missionaries to Ceylon, to spread the gospel of Christianity from India through Singapore and up to Bangkok. He returned to the United States in July 1851 and settled in New Haven, Connecticut.
His mother, Judith Manchester Taylor, was born in Madison, New York in 1814 and died in New York in 1900. She was an orphan and the daughter of Isaac and Judith Taylor. She ran the local school in Ceylon, learned Singhalese, and taught it to her 2 stepchildren as well as her own six children.
Upon relocating at New Haven, Thomas attended the local school. In 1861, when he was 17, he enlisted in the Union Army as a private in Company G, 7th Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. He rose to the rank of captain and served as hospital steward and then surgeon.
After the war, he entered Yale School of Medicine graduating in 1867. He was then stationed for a short time at a military post in Nebraska. While there he was appointed by the government to be a member of a party of scientific men and explorers, to make a tour through Alaska in the interest of the Smithsonian Institution. Returning from Alaska on a revenue cutter the party stopped at Port Townsend for supplies. It was here where Minor met Dr. George Calhoun. The older doctor, who owned the Marine Hospital, then the largest in the Northwest, invited the 24-year-old Minor to join in a partnership with him. Minor agreed, settling in the town by the end of 1868.
Despite his youth, Dr. Minor quickly took an active role in Port Townsend civic affairs. He was an accomplished orator and drew public attention when he gave a New Year's Eve address within weeks of his arrival. By 1870, Minor had bought the Marine Hospital from Calhoun and was one of the leading doctors on Puget Sound. In 1872, he organized the Puget Sound Telegraph Company to bring telegraph service to Port Townsend. Six years later Minor set up the first telephone line in the city, operating between his office and the hospital.
Our Brother would be brought to Masonic Light on January 24, 1869, in Port Townsend Lodge No. 6. His Masonic journey would take him to the Grand East on September 23, 1875.
Thomas Minor became a leader in the Republican party, regularly attending the party’s territorial conventions and representing the territory at national conventions in 1876, 1880, and 1888. In 1880 he was elected (by 98 votes out of 107 total) to the largely ornamental post of Mayor of Port Townsend. He was re-elected the following year to a second one-year term.
Minor married Sarah Montgomery on August 20, 1872, in Oregon. Sarah (born May 21, 1840, in Pennsylvania; died June 11, 1931, in Seattle) was the daughter of William Montgomery and Eliza Moorhead. Thomas and Sarah were the parents of two daughters: Elizabeth Montgomery Minor, born on May 14, 1874, in Port Townsend, Washington; died November 24, 1958, in Seattle; and Judith Strong Minor, born December 2, 1876, Port Townsend; died July 19, 1959, Philadelphia.
In 1883, he moved his family and medical practice to the larger city. The Minors immediately became as active in Seattle civic life as they had been in Port Townsend. Sarah Minor, whom he married on August 20,1872, was a co-founder of the Ladies Relief Society and Thomas Minor became a leader in Seattle’s recently established Chamber of Commerce.
In 1886, Minor was part of a group of conservative Seattle business and civic leaders who organized a "law and order" party known as the Loyal League in response to the labor unrest and anti-Chinese riots of 1885-1886 and the city’s depressed economic condition. Their candidate for mayor, Seattle founder Arthur A. Denny (1822-1899), was defeated in the 1886 election. In the following year’s election, the Loyal League supported Minor, who won the mayor’s office with a substantial majority. Minor’s one-year term as mayor appears to have been successful, helped no doubt by the fact that Seattle was on its way to economic recovery.
In addition to his term as mayor, Minor served three terms as president of the Seattle school board. He presided over the start of a major school-building program and initiated reforms in school management.
With Washington territory preparing to become a state in 1889, Minor spent the summer as a delegate to the convention that drafted the new state’s constitution. He was touted as a likely candidate for statewide office. However, soon after the statehood celebrations in November 1889, Minor and his companions set out on their ill-fated duck hunting trip.
Minor, his friend Morris Haller (son of MW Granville Haller), and Haller’s brother-in-law Lewis Cox hunted near Stanwood for several days without much success, so on December 2, 1889, they decided to cross Saratoga Passage to Brann’s Point on Whidbey Island, a distance of 12 miles. Not finding a sailboat to tow their canoes across, the three hunters set out across the often-treacherous passage paddling a large Indian cedar canoe and a smaller canvas one. They were not seen alive again. Search parties set out when they had not returned within a few days.
Once the empty canoes were found washed up on a Whidbey Island beach, it was apparent the men had drowned. Seattle came to a standstill on Sunday, December 15, as huge memorial services and a procession were held in honor of Minor and Haller. Morris Haller’s body was found on January 4, 1890, and Lewis Cox’s body a month later. Minor was never found.
The names of Seattle’s Minor Avenue and T. T. Minor Elementary School both honor our Most Worshipful Brother.