Colonel Matthew Thornton

Alfred Webb

A Compendium of Irish Biography

1878

Thornton, Matthew, Colonel, one of the signers of the American Declaration of Independence, was born in Ireland in 1714. He went to America at an early age, studied medicine, and settled as a physician at Londonderry, New Hampshire. In 1745 he served as a surgeon in an expedition against Louisburg, and was appointed a colonel of militia. In 1775 he presided over the convention which assumed the government in the name of the people of the colony. He was a delegate to Congress in 1776, in which capacity he signed the Declaration of Independence. He held the position of Judge of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire until 1782, was subsequently a member of the House and of the Senate, and in 1785 of the Council. He died at Newburyport, Massachusetts, 24th June 1803, aged about 89.

Sources

37a. Biographical Dictionary—American Biography: Francis S. Drake. Boston, 1876.

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