Three primary documents from the Irish immigrant who signed the Declaration in November, helped New Hampshire become the first colony with its own constitution, and outlived nearly every other signer.
Matthew Thornton was born in Lisburn, County Antrim, Ireland around March 3, 1714. He was three years old when his family emigrated to America, settling first in Maine and then in Worcester, Massachusetts after a Native American attack on their frontier settlement in 1722. He studied medicine in Leicester and set up practice in Londonderry, New Hampshire around 1740. He served as surgeon to New Hampshire troops during the British expedition against the French fortress Louisbourg in 1745.
Thornton rose through New Hampshire politics and became president of the New Hampshire Provincial Congress in 1775. He helped draft the New Hampshire state constitution, which was ratified in January 1776, making New Hampshire the first colony to adopt its own constitution, before independence was declared.
Matthew Thornton · President of the New Hampshire Provincial Congress 1775 · helped draft the New Hampshire state constitution ratified January 1776 · New Hampshire became the first colony to have its own constitution · Delegate to the Second Continental Congress · November 1776 · signed the Declaration of Independence · Associate Justice of the New Hampshire Superior Court 1776-1782.
Thornton was officially seated in Congress on November 4, 1776, three months after the formal signing on August 2. Six delegates signed the Declaration after the initial date, and Thornton was one of them. Because he arrived late, there was no room remaining on the parchment for him to sign near the other New Hampshire delegates. He signed his name beneath the Connecticut delegation instead.
His is the only New Hampshire signature not grouped with the other New Hampshire delegates. The parchment is at the National Archives in Washington. Thornton was sixty-two when he signed, one of the older signers at that moment.
Despite having no formal legal education, Thornton served as associate justice of the New Hampshire Superior Court from 1776 to 1782. He then served in the New Hampshire state senate. He moved to Merrimack, New Hampshire in 1780, where he spent his final decades. He died June 24, 1803, at eighty-nine, one of the longest-lived signers. He was buried at Thornton Cemetery in Merrimack, where his homestead is designated a National Historic Landmark.