Monument to Matthew Thornton, Signer of Declaration of Independence, is Unveiled in Merrimack NH

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The monument honoring Matthew Thornton was unveiled on September 29, 1892 in Merrimac, NH at his former home along the Merrimack River. Several thousand people were present at the ceremonies.

He was one of the three men from New Hampshire to sign the Declaration of Independence, joining Dr. Josiah Bartlett of Kingston and Brig. Gen. William Whipple of Portsmouth.  Thornton has been described as a physician, soldier and patriot, who agitated against the Stamp Act of 1765, presided over the Provincial Congress in 1775, served in the State Senate, and was an associate justice of the Superior Court.   

The monument was placed next to the cemetery where he was buried and across from the homestead where he lived in his final years.  New Hampshire Governor H. A. Tuttle spoke at the ceremony.


Born in the Ulster Province in Ireland in 1714, Matthew was the son of James and Elizabeth Thornton, who emigrated to New England in 1717 in the first wave of Scots-Irish Presbyterians setting here. The family first settled around Casco Bay in Maine, but after a Native American attack in the summer of 1722, they moved to Worcester, Massachusetts. According to the Constitution Center, "Matthew studied medicine in nearby Leicester and set up a very successful practice in New Hampshire. He served the New Hampshire Militia troops as their doctor during the British conquest of the French Fortress Louisbourg in Canada in 1745. Thornton’s rise as a public figure began in 1758 when he was elected to serve in the New Hampshire Provincial Assembly. He also won a royal commission as justice of the peace, an appointment that was often the first acknowledgement of a community’s esteem."


Thornton was elected to the Continental Congress until September 12, 1776, after the Declaration was signed, so he became the very last signatory when he affixed his name to the historic document on November 4, 1776.

"He was not required to do this,"  said Governor Tuttle at the ceremony. "It placed his life in greater peril had the colonial cause proved unsuccessful."

Learn more about the New England Irish contribution to the American Revolution by viewing Boston's Revolutionary Irish Trail. 



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