Matthew Thornton

Matthew Thornton was born in Ireland around 1714 and came to America as a child. He became a physician in Londonderry, New Hampshire, served as a surgeon in the expedition against Louisbourg in 1745, and later presided over the New Hampshire Provincial Congress. He was not seated in the Continental Congress until November 1776, months after the Declaration had been adopted. Congress still allowed new delegates to sign the engrossed parchment, and Thornton did so, placing his name at the lower left when no room remained beside the other New Hampshire signatures. He later served as a state judge and spent his last years in Merrimack, New Hampshire. He died in 1803, one of the longest-lived of the signers.

See also: Signers of the Declaration · Josiah Bartlett · William Whipple