Acadiensis/Volume 1/Number 3/Signature of Matthew Thornton

by James Vroom

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Signature of Matthew Thornton.

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N NEW HAMPSHIRE, before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, there were two men, uncle and nephew, who bore the name of Matthew Thornton. The uncle was born in Ireland, about 1714. He was a son of James Thornton, and came with his father to America when three or four years of age. Soon after their immigration, the family settled at Worcester, Mass.; removing thence to Londonderry, N. H., in 1740. Having studied medicine in Massachusetts, Matthew Thornton was commissioned by Warren and Pepperrell, in 1745, as under-sergeant of Richardson's regiment, and accompanied the expedition to Louisbourg, On his return he resumed the practice of his profession in Londonderry, where he was later appointed justice of the peace, and also colonel of militia. Though he thus held two offices under the royal government, he represented the town of Londonderry in the second, third and fourth provincial congresses of New Hampshire, and was elected president of the latter in 1775. He held the same position in the fifth provincial congress; and when that body resolved itself into a state legislature, Matthew Thornton was chosen speaker of the house of representatives, an office which he very soon left vacant to become a member of the upper house, and afterwards a justice of the supreme court of New Hampshire. In 1779 he removed from Londonderry to Exeter, and in the following year to the Merrimac, where, in 1784, he obtained exclusive right to the ferry at the place still known as Thornton's Ferry. He died in 1803 while on a visit to his daughter in Newburyport, Mass.

Matthew Thornton, the nephew, was the son of another James Thornton. He was born in New Hampshire, in December, 1746. He was a resident of the town of Thornton; where, at the age of twenty-nine, he seems to have taken a leading part in local affairs, and held the rank of captain of militia. While Colonel Matthew Thornton represented Londonderry in the third provincial congress, Captain Matthew Thornton sat in the same convention as the representative of the towns of Holderness and Thornton. Matthew Thornton, of Thornton, was also a member of the fourth New Hampshire congress, and was by it appointed to assist in the work of raising volunteers "to guard the Western Frontier." At the battle of Bennington, in August, 1777, he appeared among the British, under circumstances which led to the suspicion that he was not altogether an unwilling prisoner. He was arrested by the New Hampshire authorities; was detained in prison for two years, the general assembly in the meantime passing and repealing special acts to authorize his trial in certain counties, one after another; and was finally tried and acquitted. After his release, he fled to escape persecution. Joining the Penobscot Loyalists at St. Andrews, he received a share in their grants of land on the St. Croix, his farm lot lying in that part of the old parish of St. Stephen which is now the parish of Dufferin. He died about 1824, and is buried at the Ledge, not far from the land allotted to him in the Penobscot Association grant. His grave is not marked, and the exact spot is difficult to find. There are persons living who can recall to memory the old man, broken in health and spirit; and a refined, gentle and patient woman, his wife. The ruins of the old stone house in which they lived, a large pewter dish that belonged to their better days, and a scarf-pin bearing the family coat-of-arms, and beneath it some Masonic device that is said to have helped him in his flight—these, and a few old documents in which his name occurs, are all that remain to his younger descendants as mementos of the refugee.

One of these two men was a delegate to the general congress that assembled in Philadelphia in 1776 and adopted the Declaration of Independence. He is mentioned in the journals of the congress as "The hon. Matthew Thornton, Esq., a delegate from New Hampshire." Though not present when the famous declaration was issued, and not even a member of the congress until four months later, he was allowed to add his signature. Was this Colonel Thornton, of Londonderry; or was it his nephew, Captain Thornton, of Thornton? The descendants of the latter have a tradition that he was the signer.

According to this family tradition, Captain Thornton, just before the affair known as the battle of Bennington, had gone to look over some land which he had bought or wished to buy, and was surprised and taken prisoner by the British, and compelled to drive one of their ammunition wagons. His neighbors, finding him thus employed, supposed that he had been all along secretly in sympathy with the British; and he was therefore arrested for treason. The fact that after a long imprisonment he was brought to trial and honorably acquitted did not allay their suspicions; and to avoid further trouble he secretly made his way by sea to St. Andrews, where, on the arrival of the Loyalist refugees, he was admitted to their company as a fellow sufferer.

The following statement^[1] was given the writer some years ago by the late Joseph Donald, of Dufferin, who at one time sat in the House of Assembly of this province as a member for Charlotte:

It has always been known in the family that Matthew Thornton, of the Penobscot Association, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, though, for obvious reasons, very little was said about it during his lifetime. As a Loyalist among Loyalists, he would, of course, prefer that the fact should be forgotten; and it would have been more in accordance with his wishes if it had remained a family secret.

Soon after I became acquainted with the family, which was nearly seventy years ago, I first heard it mentioned. This was but a year or two after Matthew Thornton died, and while his widow was still living.

A little incident which convinced me of the truth of this story took place at the house of his son (afterwards my father-in-law), who was also named Matthew Thornton.

A friend had sent me a group of portraits of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Showing this to Mr. Thornton, without letting him know what it was, I asked him whether he knew any of the faces. He pointed to one and said, "Why, that's Father Thornton," and showed it to his wife, who also recognized the likeness. Then I told him that the pictures were those of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and that the one he had pointed out bore his father's name; and he said, "Yes, he was a signer,"

It was easy to be misled by a strong family likeness; and "signer" would not necessarily mean a signer of the Declaration of Independence; so, to remove any lingering doubts, Mr. Donald went to some trouble and expense in looking up records in New Hampshire. But he finally reached the conclusion that the family tradition was correct.

Mr. Donald's conclusion, however, was not supported by such documentary proof as would be convincing to others. The papers in his possession related chiefly to the trial and acquittal of Captain Thornton. The readiest means of testing the truth of the curious tradition seemed to be a comparison of the signature of Matthew Thornton in a fac-simile of the Declaration of Independence, with signatures of Captain Thornton, the Loyalist; but the result was not so conclusive as might have been expected.

[From fac-simile of the Declaration of Independence].

[From a document witnessed by Matthew Thornton soon after coming to St. Stephen.]

[From a note of hand given by Matthew Thornton, of St. Stephen, in 1813.]

The very remarkable resemblances in these signatures the peculiar break between the "r" and the "n" in the first syllable of the surname, the joining of "t" and "o," and the stiff ending of the final letter of the name—seemed, at least, to call for a suspension of judgment. If an undoubted signature of Dr. Thornton should prove to be very different, Mr. Donald's contention would hold good, and the tradition must be accepted as true.

Following up the matter more recently (with the courteous help of Mr. V. H. Paltsits, of the New York Public Library), the required signature was obtained, and a wonderful similarity of handwriting shown to have existed in the case of uncle and nephew. If the resemblance in their features was so great, it is not surprising that the son of the latter was misled by the printed portrait.

[From a fac-simile of document signed by him as Chairman of the Committee of Safety, "Exeter, June 19th, 1775."]

[From a recommendation of a committee of the N. H. House of Representatives, dated "March 3rd, 1786."]

It must be admitted, then, that "The hon. Matthew Thornton, Esq.," president of the New Hampshire convention, was the delegate to the congress at Philadelphia and the signer of the famous document. His unfortunate nephew, who, when a company of men was to be raised by the New Hampshire Committee of Safety, in 1775, was recommended to that committee as "a Man Shutabe [sic] we Think to Inlist said Company, and a man that we Can Depend upon in the graitest Troble or Destress," was probably a signer of some other pledge or protest. Such a document was signed by many who afterwards remained loyal to the crown; for many of the colonists felt that they were opposing the unlawful acts and pretensions of the British parliament, and not their lawful sovereign, the King of England. They were ready enough to acknowledge the King; but were not ready to acknowledge any other authority as above that of the colonial legislatures. The Declaration of Independence, in 1776, may have compelled Captain Thornton, as it certainly did compel many another colonist, to choose between keeping faith with his associates and remaining true to his allegiance. That his uncle was present at his long-deferred trial, and that two brothers-in-law were men of influence, may, perhaps, in part account for his acquittal in defiance of public opinion. This view of the case is certainly in accordance with the fact that he was received on equal terms as a member of the Penobscot Association of United Empire Loyalists.

James Vroom.

1. Published in the St. Croix Courier series of articles on the History of Charlotte County and the Border Towns, now out of print.