There is some uncertainty as to the date of his birth. He was of Scotch-Irish extraction and his parents, James and Elizabeth (Jenkins) Thornton, emigrated to America about 1718, settling first in Maine and later in the neighborhood of Worcester, Massachussets.
Matthew received his early education and began to study medicine in Massachussets. He completed his studies in 1740.
He began to practise in Londonderry, N. H. , where there was a vigorous Scotch-Irish colony whose members and descendants played such a prominent part in New Hampshire history. He resided here until 1779. He was successful in his profession, took an active part in the affairs of this somewhat contentious community.
In 1745 he took part in the Louisbourg expedition and his name appears as "under-surgeon" in the roster of the New Hampshire contingent. For some time he held a commission as colonel of militia under the royal government. In 1758 his name appears in the records as member of the legislature from Londonderry and for the next thirty years he was an outstanding figure in provincial and state politics.
From January 17, 1760, when he waited on Gov. Benning Wentworth with a legislative address expressive of gratitude for recent victories and "fresh zeal for his Majesty's service, " until June 8, 1775, when he delivered to that governor's successor a denunciation of the "unconstitutional and tyrannical Acts of the British Parliament, " Thornton's career was a chronicle of revolutionary progress in that part of New England.
During the war, while governmental organization was in more or less confusion, he held a variety of important places, speaker of the house, member of the council, and president of the constitutional convention. In 1776 he was chosen an associate justice of the superior court, holding office until 1782. It was a period when "separation of powers" had not been fully achieved and when legal training was not a prerequisite to service on the bench. In 1776 he was elected to the Continental Congress and although he did not take his place until November, he was in time to acquire immortality by affixing his signature to the Declaration of Independence. He served about one year as delegate and returned to resume service in state affairs. In 1780 he established his home in Merrimack County.
He had given up professional work but continued to be active in political affairs for some years, serving in the newly organized state Senate, 1784-86. His last years were spent on his Merrimack farm where he enjoyed the standing of a rural Nestor who had well served the councils of the state in the critical quarter-century, 1763-89.
He died in Newburyport, Massachussets, while visiting his daughter, but his body was interred near his home in Merrimack.
Matthew Thornton was an Irish born American physician and legislator, who is famous as one of the 56 signers of the U. S. Declaration of Independence. Initially he was not able to participate in the signing of the Declaration on 2 August 1776, but then he got the opportunity to sign the document on a later date along with some others. During the King George’s War, he was selected to serve as a surgeon in the New Hampshire military. He played a major role in the expedition leading to the capture of the French fortress of Louisbourg. The town of Thornton, New Hampshire, is named in his honor, as is a Londonderry elementary school, and Thorntons Ferry School in Merrimack. Thornton's residence in Derry, which was part of Londonderry at the time, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
His political career began when he was elected as a delegate for Londonderry in the Colonial Assembly. Later on he went on to become the President of the New Hampshire Provincial Congress. He served as the president of the five member committee that drafted the first state constitution that America was to adopt on her independence. He signed the U. S. Declaration of Independence in 1776 and was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress.
Prominent in the agitation against the Stamp Act he advanced steadily in the confidence of the revolutionary party and when the break came was elected president of the provincial congress of 1775 and chairman of the committee of safety that organized resistance and exercised general powers of government in the first stages of the war. His address to the people under the date June 2, 1775, is a model plea for order, self-restraint, and vigorous cooperation in the emergency.
He was hardworking and ambitious.
He was married to Hannah Jack about 1760. He brought up a family of five children.
(d.1754)
(d. 1786 (m. 1760))
(d. 1814)
( d. 1845)
(1717–1774)
(1690–1741)
(1713–1790)
(1763–1817)
( d.1787)
