John Randolph Thornton

John Thornton

John Randolph Thornton (born August 25, 1846 in Bayou Goula , Iberville Parish , Louisiana , †  December 28, 1917 in Alexandria , Louisiana) was an American politician ( Democratic Party ) who represented the state of Louisiana in the Senate .

John Thornton was born on the Notoway Plantation, near what is now the ghost town of Bayou Goula, and moved to Rapides Parish with his parents in 1853 . He first attended Parker Seminary in Pineville , then later the McGruder Institute in Baton Rouge and until 1863 the Louisiana Seminary in Pineville. Until the end of the Civil War he served as a soldier in a cavalry regiment in the Confederate Army . Then he worked in agriculture until 1877. During that year he studied law , was admitted to the bar and began practicing as a lawyer at Rapides Parish; he also acted as a judge in this district from 1878 to 1880. He also took part in the Louisiana Constitutional Convention in 1898 and was a member of the governing body of Louisiana State University from 1904 to 1910.

After the death of US Senator Samuel D. McEnery on June 28, 1910, Thornton was appointed by Governor Jared Y. Sanders to succeed him in Congress . He took up his mandate from August 27 of the same year and, after he had won the by-election, remained in Washington until March 3, 1915 . During this time he chaired the Senate's Fisheries Committee. In 1914 he did not stand for re-election; after leaving Congress, President Woodrow Wilson appointed him as a member of a military advisory committee ( Board of Ordnance and Fortification ), of which he was a member until 1917. Then Thornton practiced again as a lawyer in Alexandria, where he died that same year.

Web links

• John Randolph Thornton in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• John Randolph Thornton in the database of Find a Grave (English)