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Matthew Thornton

MATTHEW THORNTON was born in Ireland, about the year 1714. When he was two or three years old, his father emigrated to America, and, after a residence of a few years at Wiscasset, in Maine, he removed to Worcester, in Massachusetts. Here young Thornton received a respectable education, and subsequently commenced the study of medicine. Soon after completing his preparatory course, he removed to Londonderry, in New Hampshire, where he entered upon the practice of his profession, and soon became distinguished, both as a physician and a surgeon.

In 1745, Dr. Thornton was appointed to accompany the New Hampshire troops, as a surgeon, in the well known expedition, planned by Governor Shirley, against Cape Breton. His professional abilities were here creditably tested; for of the corps of five hundred men, of whom he had charge as a physician, only six died of sickness, previous to the surrender of Louisburg, notwithstanding the hardships to which they were exposed.

Under the royal government, Dr. Thornton was invested with the office of Justice of the Peace, and commissioned as Colonel of the militia. But when that government was dissolved, Colonel Thornton abjured the British interest, and adhered to the patriotic cause. He was president of a Provincial Convention, assembled at Exeter, in 1775.

The next year he was chosen a delegate to the Continental Congress, and singed his name to the engrossed copy of the Declaration of Independence. During the same year, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas; and, shortly after, was raised to the office of Judge of the Superior Court of New hampshire, in which office he continued until 1782. Two years previous to this latter date, he had purchased a farm, pleasantly situated on the banks of the Merrimack, near Exeter, where he principally devoted himself to agriculture. He was a member of the General Court for one or two years, and a senator in the State Legislature, as also a member of the Council, in 1785, under President Langdon. Dr. Thornton died while on a visit at New-buryport, on the 24th of June, 1803, in the eighty-ninth year of his age. He was a man of strong powers of mind, and was remarkably entertaining and instructive in conversation.