Matthew Thornton

Matthew Thornton was born on March 3, 1714, in Lisburn County, Antrim, Ireland, to James and Elizabeth Thornton. He would be one of three signers born in Ireland. His parents had 8 children, and Dr. Thornton was the third-oldest. His family can be traced to England, then relocated to Scotland before finally settling in Ireland. Not much is known about his early years. We do know that the family left Ireland about 1717, when Dr. Thornton was three years old, and arrived in Boston about the 4^th of August 1718. From there, they relocated to Falmouth, Maine[1] and spent the winter on the ship.

By 1722, they had settled near Wiscasset, Maine, but were forced to flee by canoe and resettle in Worcester, MA when a band of Indians attacked their settlement. By 1730, his father had purchased 45 acres to establish a farm, and Dr. Thornton was sent to Worcester Academy to receive a classical education. In 1734, his father purchased another 90 acres of land and established a homestead through a land exchange with Nathaniel Moore, who took the previously purchased 45 acres. This new track of land was near the lands of Dickory Sergeant, who had refused to leave his lands during Queen Anne’s War and was killed and scalped by Indians. His wife was killed with a tomahawk. His children were then taken to Canada, but returned 7 years later to occupy the land James Thornton had bought.

Dr. Thornton would work on this land until his father sold it in 1740 because of religious intolerance. The family would be driven out of Worcester because they were Presbyterian, and Worcester was predominantly Congregationalist. Ironically, this is also why his ancestors left Scotland and relocated to Ireland. The big issues between the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists were taxation. The Presbyterians were being taxed to support the local Congregationalist church. The Congregationalists had offered them seats in their church, leading the Presbyterians to believe they would be able to preach from the pulpit. This did not happen, and the Presbyterians withdrew from the church. James Thornton would be the primary leader behind the movement from Worcester to Pelham, some 30 miles northwest. He helped organize the company that would obtain lands for the Presbyterians to resettle on. The company would buy the land from Colonel Stoddard, and a deed was enacted on January 21, 1739. James would have the largest interest, 14/16^th parts. The new town would welcome people of good Presbyterian character, and on May 1, 1739, the town's acreage was distributed. James received 1100 acres, and his sons, Dr. Thornton and William, each received 100 acres. Another drawing for town lots was held, and James would receive an additional 22 lots while Dr. Thornton and his brother would receive 2 additional lots. In 1763, the town of Thornton in Grafton County was granted to and named for him. Some others were also part of this grant. In 1768, the grant was enlarged to include additional land, and other members of his family were included.

Sometime during this move, Dr. Thornton began his medical studies. But it is unknown exactly when he began studying medicine and surgery under Dr. Thomas Green. We do know that he began to practice medicine shortly after he left Pelham and moved to Londonderry.

Londonderry is more populous, and here he opens a medical practice that will soon thrive. He gains distinction as both a surgeon and a physician. His surgical skills will be put to the test in 1745 when he is part of an expedition to Cape Breton that captures Louisbourg. Upon completion of this expedition, he returns to resume his successful private practice. His practice was thriving enough that he could purchase land, and by 1752, he owned an additional 320 acres.

By 1760, Dr. Thornton had begun to court Hannah Jack of Chester, New Hampshire. She was 18 years old, and he was 46. Hannah was considered a great beauty, and they were married for 26 years until she died in 1786. They would have 5 children together: James was born on December 20, 1763, and lived until July 3, 1817. He would marry Mary Parker, and they would have 5 children. Another son, Andrew, was born in or about 1765 and died on April 22, 1787. Their first daughter, Mary, was born in 1768 and passed away on May 28, 1845. She married Silas Betton and had 7 children. Another daughter, Hannah, was born in September of 1770, but some accounts list her as the second Hannah born in 1774. She would marry John McGaw and have at least 3 children before finally passing in May of 1846. Their last child, named Matthew, was born in 1771 and died on December 5, 1804. He married a woman named Fanny, and they had at least 2 children.

By 1765, Dr. Thornton, like other Founders, was concerned about proper representation in Parliament and how the English government was treating his fellow countrymen. When Parliament passed the Stamp Act, Dr. Thornton heartily opposed it and was a prominent agitator, but he was still commissioned as a colonel by Royal Governor Wentworth to serve in the militia. He would continue to oppose British policies, which were harmful to Americans, and, over the next 10 years, would serve as a town Selectman, Colonel, Justice of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, and a Justice of the Peace. All of this would be through royal appointments, but it did not sway Dr. Thornton in his fervent belief in the rights of Americans as English subjects. By 1775, he was elected President of the Provincial Congress after denouncing the “unconstitutional and tyrannical Acts of the British Parliament,” [2] and Governor Wentworth fled the colony. His flight would effectively end the royal government in New Hampshire.

Upon assuming the Presidency of the Provincial Congress, Dr. Thornton issued a statement to the citizens of New Hampshire:

“Friends and brethren, you must all be sensible that the affairs of America have, at length, come to a very affecting and alarming crisis. The horrors and distresses of a civil war, which, till of late, we only had in contemplation, we now find ourselves obliged to realize. Painful beyond expression, have those scenes of blood and devastation which the barbarous cruelty of British troops have placed before our eyes. Duty to God, to ourselves, to posterity, ends forced by the cries of slaughtered innocents, have urged us to take up arms in our own defense…we seriously and earnestly recommend the practice of that pure and undefiled religion, which in the Divine protection and favour, without whose blessings all the measures of safety we have, or can propose, will end in our shame and disappointment.”[3]

In May of 1775, he wrote to the Continental Congress:

“Long has America mourned to find those she wishes to revere, adopting one plan after another to strip her of the blessings of freedom, deaf to all her pleas for justice. The Counsels of America, united in that illustrious body, the late Continental Congress, we hoped that by denying ourselves we should scatter the mist which hid the path of justice from the eye of Britain; but with pain we have learned that firmness is insolence, and that the most calm resolution to be free is treason in the new Ministerial language.” 

And he continued:

 “feeling for ourselves, or friends and our Country, we have determined to exert our utmost efforts in defense of the common cause of America, and for the present have resolved to raise the number of two thousand men (including officers) to be employed as occasion shall require, under the regulation of this Convention, until we have the advice of the Continental Congress, to whose superintendence we choose to submit.”[4] 

This second quote in the letter appears to be the earliest official suggestion of national independence from a colony.

            He also wrote to the President of the New York Congress advising him not to demolish Fort Ticonderoga and sent similar advice to the Continental Congress, while at the same time working on a new state constitution for New Hampshire. In addition, he was a member of the Committee of Safety, which kept him terribly busy. In October of 1775, he wrote to the Committee that he had not been able to change his clothes for the past 10 days because he had been so busy. With that said, he would return to Cambridge, so long as his wife’s health permitted him to be gone. He was also the Chairman of the Committee of Safety and was appointed to answer a letter sent to the Committee about the Battle of Lexington. 1775 was an extremely busy year for Dr. Thornton, and it would remain so through 1776.

            In September of 1776, he was elected to the Continental Congress but was engaged in judicial responsibilities at the Superior Court in Exeter, New Hampshire, and was unable to leave for Philadelphia until October 15. Once he left, his journey was not easy. He had to cross the North River and came into contact with the British, but he evaded them and had to cross in Peekskill. He arrives in Philadelphia on November 3, 1776, and presents his credentials on November 4. He signed the Declaration that day and was one of only 6 signers allowed to sign after August 2. To sign, a delegate had to fully support the document. Because Samuel Adams took the spot that Dr. Thornton would have filled had he been there on August 2, he had to look for another location, which has led some to suggest that he was the last Signer to sign the document. This was not the case. His name, along with the names of the other signers, would be carefully guarded until January 18, 1777, when Congress passed a resolution allowing the names to be made public. A copy of the Declaration would then be submitted to each state with the Signers names. John Hancock wrote on January 3, 1777:

“Gentleman, As there is not a more distinguished event in the History of America than the Declaration of her Independence, nor any that in all probability, will so much excite the attention of future ages, it is highly proper that the memory of the Transaction should be preserved in the most careful manner that can be devised.

I am therefore commanded by Congress to transmit you the enclosed Copy of the Act of Independence, with the List of the several Members of Congress subscribed thereto, and to request that you will cause the same to be put upon Record that it may henceforth form a part of the Archives of your State, and remain a lasting Testimony of your approbation of that necessary and important Measure.

I have the honor to be, Gentlemen, your most obed. Servt., John Hancock”[5]

During his time in Congress, he was very diligent in his work and took a keen interest in the Army and its welfare. He would be re-elected in December of 1776 to serve a one-year term starting on January 23, 1777, but was unable to do so because of being sick from the smallpox vaccine, which was administered on November 8, 1776. It left his eyes weakened and interfered with his duties. He does not return to Congress and instead returns to New Hampshire by the spring of 1777 and resumes his judicial duties.

Unfortunately, his namesake and nephew, Matthew Thornton, was indicted for treason, but Dr. Thornton did not preside over the case because it involved a relative. Matthew Thornton, the nephew, would be found not guilty of treason. However, another nephew, John Thornton, would serve as a First Lieutenant in the Second Regiment, Schenectady Division, along with his brothers Thomas and James. Lieutenant John Thornton would eventually rise to the rank of Major, and his son, Dr. Thornton’s grandnephew, would become a Brigadier General in the Union Army during the Civil War and serve with distinction. But the men were not the only Thorntons to play a role in American History. Dr. Thornton’s niece, Catherine Wasson, played an interesting part in the Revolution. She was the daughter of his sister Agnes, who, along with her husband, had settled in the New York Frontier along the Mohawk River. One of Catherine’s childhood playmates was Joseph Brandt, also known as Thayendanegea, Chief of the Mohawks. Upon Catherine’s marriage to Col. Clyde (also of Londonderry, NH), they moved to Cherry Valley, NY. Due to a loss by the Indians at Oriskany in August of 1777, the Indians retaliated along with the Tories and destroyed Cherry Valley – massacring the people. The night before the event, Catherine had the same dream 3 separate times in which Indians and Tories were burning the town and murdering the inhabitants. Mollie Brandt, the sister of Joseph, appeared in her dreams, urging her to flee to the fort. Because of this dream, Catherine urges her husband, Colonel Clyde, to go down to the Fort and prepare for the family to move into it. About 9 am, guns start to fire, and they could hear the war yells of the Indians. She moves her family (which consists of eight children, a dog, and a bound apprentice) to the woods and hides them by lying on the grounds near a large fallen tree. All night it rained, hailed, and froze – they had nothing to eat and only the clothes on their backs. Sometime during the night, a band of Indians came within 30 feet of them but did not find the family. Catherine was able to keep the children quiet – in one instance, covering her infant’s mouth as their apprentice kept the dogs’ mouths closed. In the morning, Catherine sent the apprentice, James Simmons, to see if the flag was still flying and, if so, go down to the fort and let them know where they were hiding. When the apprentice reached the fort, Col. Clyde was able to assemble a group of volunteers and go out and rescue them. It is said that she continued to serve the cause by trying to impress upon the young men “the inestimable value of the right for which America was contending, of duty of all citizens to hoard everything, even life itself in their defense, and of the glory which would be the reward of patriotism.”[6]

In December of 1778, Dr. Thornton purchased 50 acres from Jonathan Norris in Exeter, New Hampshire, and moved there. He had lived in Londonderry for nearly 40 years. He would not sell his Londonderry home until April of 1779. But he would not be long in Exeter, as he moved to Merrimack, New Hampshire, in 1780 and bought the Lutwyche farm in 1781. It is here that he is granted, in 1784, the “exclusive right of keeping a ferry two miles above and two miles below his house.”[7] The area would be renamed Thornton’s Ferry. He would spend the remaining years of his life at this home and would operate the ferry until before his death. But it was not the only occupation in which he would engage. In 1785, he was appointed a Justice of the Peace and of the Quorum of the state, and was also a state Senator from 1784 -1787, representing Hillsborough County. It was during this time that his wife and son, Andrew, passed away. By 1787, he had decided to retire from public life.

In the last years of his life, he would author essays and letters to newspapers on a variety of topics. He even wrote a work on the metaphysical origins of sin, which was never published. It has an extremely long title: Paradise Lost; or the Origin of Evil called Sin examined; or how it ever did or ever can come to pass, that a creature should or could do anything unfit or improper for that creature to do; or how did it, ever can come to pass, that a creature should or could omit or leave undone what that creature ought to have done, or was fit and proper for that creature to do; or how it ever was, or can be possible for a creature to displease the Creator in Thought, Word or Action. He would pass on June 24, 1803, while visiting his daughter, Hannah, and her husband, John McGraw, in Newburyport, MA. He was buried at Thornton’s Ferry, in New Hampshire, on land that he had donated for a burial site.

Tidbits

Governor Plumer noted he was plain and unassuming, loved to read, and had a strong memory, good humor, and pleasant social and communicative skills, satirical, sarcastic, to the point of occasionally causing offense.

Described as being over 6 feet tall with a dark complexion and black eyes that were piercing. Even at 61, he was described as handsome and charming.

There are several monuments to him, including a highway marker across the street from his homestead. The Daughters of the American Revolution placed another marker nearby.

His homestead and cemetery are listed on the National Register of Historic Places

His home in Derry, NH, is a private residence and has also been designated a National Historic Landmark.

[1] Now known as Portland, Maine

[2] http://www.dsdi1776.com/signers‑by‑state/

[3] http://www.dsdi1776.com/signers‑by‑state/

[4] Adams, Charles Thornton, Matthew Thornton of New Hampshire A Patriot of the American Revolution (Philadelphia, Dando Print and Pub. Co. 1903) 24

[5] Adams. Charles Thornton, Matthew Thornton of New Hampshire A Patriot of the American Revolution 47

[6] Adams. Charles Thornton, Matthew Thornton of New Hampshire A Patriot of the American Revolution 54

[7] Adams, Charles Thornton, Matthew Thornton of New Hampshire A Patriot of the American Revolution 55