Thornton, Matthew

Thornton, Matthew, 1714–1803, political leader in the American Revolution, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Ireland. Taken to America as a child, he studied medicine and in 1740 began practice at Londonderry, N.H. He served as an army surgeon in the French and Indian Wars and held political posts in New Hampshire before and after his term in the Continental Congress (1776–77).

See biography by C. T. Adams (1903).

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