Dyer H. Sanborn (1799-1871) was born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, and died in Hopkinton, New Hampshire. As a young man he attended Gilmanton Academy and from 1822 to 1826, he lived and worked as a teacher in Lynn, Salem, and Marblehead, Massachusetts. He married Harriet W. Tucker in Deerfield, New Hampshire, in 1826. They moved to Sanbornton, New Hampshire, where he served on the School Committee Board from 1840 to 1846. He also served as a representative of Sanbornton in the New Hampshire General Assembly from 1845 to 1846. Sanborn published eight textbook editions of Analytical Grammar of the English Language (1840). These would become a standard in American schools and were popularly known as Sanborn's Grammar. He was conferred an honorary degree of A. M. from Waterville College in 1833 and from Dartmouth College in 1841. Sanborn was one of the principals, as well as the Latin, Greek, and natural science teacher, at Woodman Sanbornton Academy from 1839 to 1841, and then at Sanbornton Academy from 1842 to 1845, which Mary Baker Eddy attended in 1842. When the academy was closed following the founding of the New Hampshire Conference Seminary (now known as Tilton School) in 1845, he continued to teach there. When Proctor Academy opened in Andover, New Hampshire, in 1848, Dyer was its principal for two years. From 1851 to 1852 he was principal of the Tubbs Union Academy in Washington, New Hampshire, leaving there in 1853 to take charge of the academy at Hopkinton. He was a member of the Freemasons and was at some point ordained a clergyman of the Methodist Church. At the time of his death, he was the postmaster at Hopkinton.

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