Hannah Jack Thornton

Hannah Jack Thornton and her husband Dr. Matthew Thornton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, were of Scotch-Irish descent. She was only eighteen years old in 1760 when she married Thornton, a man of middle age. Thornton signed the Declaration of Independence four months after the document had been adopted.

Mrs. Thornton was a daughter of Andrew Jack, who settled in Chester, New Hampshire, after immigrating from Londonderry, Ireland. His family, however, originally came from Scotland.

Dr. and Mrs. Thornton were parents of five children, four of whom grew to adulthood. Thornton lived seventeen years after the death of his wife and died in 1803. They are both buried at Thornton’s Ferry, New Hampshire.