Harry I. Thornton

Harry Innis Thornton Jr. (c. 1834 – February 25, 1895) was a United States Democratic politician and attorney in California.

Born in Greene County, Alabama, Thornton followed his family to California. In 1841, his father, Harry Innis Thornton, Sr., was a judge and member of the Alabama Legislature, residing in Eutaw, Alabama.[1] By 1851, Thornton Sr. moved to California and was appointed to the federal Public Land Commission to address property ownership in California.[2] By 1854, Thornton Jr.'s sister and her husband, James D. Thornton, had moved to San Francisco, also.

Thornton Jr. was a member of the California State Senate during the 1850s.[3] At the start of the American Civil War, he gave a speech on the floor of the Senate defending the Southern states' rights to succeed.[4] He resigned from the Legislature and went to serve in the Army of the Confederate States of America.[5] He was wounded at the Battle of Chickamauga Sept. 18–20, 1863 while serving with the 58th Regiment Alabama Infantry.[6] After the war, he returned to California and practiced law in that state and Nevada,[7] handling complex mining litigation.[4] He died in Fresno, California, on February 25, 1895.

References
  1. "Alabama-Whig Convention". New-York Daily Tribune. Library of Congress Historic Newspapers. January 19, 1844. p. 2. Retrieved July 25, 2017.
  2. "California Land Commissioner". American Telegraph (Wash, DC). Library of Congress Historic Newspapers. September 16, 1851. p. 2. Retrieved July 25, 2017.
  3. Thornton, Harry I. "Speech of Hon. Harry I. Thornton, jr., on the Resolutions upon the state of the Union, delivered in the senate of the state of California at the twelfth session of the legislature, February 8th, 1861". Amazon.com. Retrieved 26 June 2013.
  4. "Col. H. I. Thornton Breathes His Last". The Morning Call (San Francisco, CA). Library of Congress Historic Newspapers. February 26, 1895. p. 7. Retrieved July 25, 2017.
  5. Goodwin, C. C. (March 17, 2008). "Harry I. Thornton". As I Remember Them, 1913, cited in the Nevada Observer. Archived from the original on 27 November 2010. Retrieved 26 June 2013.
  6. Vassar, Alexander C. (2011). Legislators of California (PDF). Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  7. "The Democracy of White Pine are 'Moving'". The Carson daily appeal. Library of Congress Historic Newspapers. March 25, 1870. p. 2. Retrieved July 25, 2017.


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