Colonel Thomas Hoyer Monstery

Thomas Hoyer Monstery (born: Thomas Hoyer Mönster) (April 21, 1824 - December 31, 1901) was a Danish-American fencing and boxing instructor, duelist and soldier-of-fortune who fought in a number of Central and South American conflicts during the mid-19th century.

Monstery was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. His father, Ole Michael Munster, had been an officer of the Danish Army but had been dismissed from service for having fought a duel; he was later pardoned, but banished from Denmark to serve as the Commandant of the Danish settlement of St. Croix, where he died twelve years later as the result of a lung injury sustained during the duel. Thomas' mother, Bergitha Christina Munster, was the daughter of Meta Anckarström, cousin to Jacob Johan Anckarström who had, in the year 1792, assassinated King Gustav III of Sweden.

At the age of twelve, in 1836, Thomas was enlisted as a cadet in the Danish navy, serving on the gunship Bellona and traveling to many foreign ports including Brazil, Russia, England and Portugal. After serving for three years he was injured during a fireworks accident on board ship and temporarily blinded; this injury caused him to lose his cadetship.

Upon regaining his eyesight he enrolled at the Military College at Copenhagen, where he remained for one year. He then attended at the Central Institute of Physical Culture in Stockholm, excelling in fencing, swimming, and other aspects of physical culture training. After four years of study at the Central Institute, he graduated a master-of-arms.

Coming into his inheritance at the age of eighteen, Monstery decided to pursue the specialized study of close combat, traveling to England where he studied boxing with William Thompson, better known by his professional name of Bendigo, and then to Hamburg, Germany where he continued his boxing training with an instructor named Liedersdorff. He continued to travel throughout Europe seeking instruction in various forms of fencing, including knife fighting in Spain and Italy.

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