Matthew Thornton

Matthew Thornton

Matthew Thornton (* 1714 in Ireland , † June 24, 1803 in Newburyport , Massachusetts , USA ) was an Irish-British-American doctor, lawyer and politician. He signed for New Hampshire , the Declaration of Independence , making it one of the founding fathers of the United States .

Life

When Thornton was three years old, his family immigrated to the Thirteen Colonies in America. There she settled first in Wiscasset . Maine down. Soon after, the family moved to Worcester, Massachusetts . Thornton became a doctor and surgeon in the New Hampshire Militia for the campaign against Fort Louisbourg . He was appointed Justice of the Peace and Colonel of the Militia by the British Crown. Thornton became a city councilor, representative of Londonderry, New Hampshire, and president of the provincial parliament. As a member of the Security Committee , he drafted the New Hampshire Post-Dissolution Administration Plan, which became the first state constitution adopted after hostilities with the Kingdom of Great Britain began.

Thornton was the first President of the New Hampshire House of Representatives and Associate Justice to the New Hampshire Supreme Court. Elected to the Continental Congress after debates over independence arose, he got there just in time to actually sign the US Declaration of Independence.

He became a political essayist. In 1780 he retired from medical practice and moved to Merrimack, New Hampshire , where he farmed and ran a ferry with his family. Thornton died in Newburyport, Massachusetts while staying with his daughter and was buried in Thornton Cemetery in Merrimack, New Hampshire.

Others

His grave inscription reads "An Honest Man." (An honest man.)

The town of Thornton, New Hampshire and a primary school in Londonderry, New Hampshire were named after him.

Web links

• Matthew Thornton short biography on the US Congress website
• Matthew Thornton Biography of Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, 1856 (English)