History of Macon County, Illinois.  With Illustrations Descriptive Of 
Its Scenery, and Biographical Sketches of some of its Prominent Men and 
Pioneers.  Published by Brink, McDonough & Co., Phildelphia, 1880.  
Reproduced through efforts of The Decatur Genealogical Society, 1972. 
pp. 138-139 [Bourbon County].

JUDGE ANTHONY THORNTON was born in Bourbon county, Kentucky, on the 
ninth of November, 1814.  He is descended from an English family.  His 
great-great-grandfather emigrated from England to Virginia.  In Caroline 
county, of the Old Dominion, members of the family lived for two or 
three generations.  His father, Anthony Thornton, was born in that 
county, was raised there, and married Mary Towles, a native of the same 
county, and also connected with an old Virginia family.  In the year 
1807, Judge Thornton's father and grandfather removed from Virginia to 
Kentucky.  The colony, including the members of the family and the negro 
servants, numbered in all ninety-nine persons.  On their arrival in 
Kentucky, they settled in Bourbon county, where his parents resided till 
their death.
	The early years of Judge Thornton's life were spent in his native 
county.  He first attended the common schools.  At the age of fourteen 
or fifteen he was sent to a high school at Gallatin, Tennessee, where he 
remained two years.  He then entered Centre College at Danville, 
Kentucky, and subsequently became a student in Miami University at 
Oxford, Ohio, from which he graduated in the fall of 1834.  He studied 
law at Paris, Kentucky, in the office of an uncle, John R. Thornton, and 
was licensed to practice by the Kentucky Court of Appeals before he was 
twenty-two.  In October, 1836, he passed through Illinois, on his way to 
Missouri; he intended to make his home in the latter state.  Stopping at 
Shelbyville, to visit some relatives, he concluded to give up his 
project of settling in Missouri and establish himself in the practice of 
the law at Shelbyville.  In November, 1836, he opened an office.  He was 
favored with success from the very start, and during the first year had 
as much business as he cared to attend to in the courts of Shelby and 
adjoining counties.  In those days all the lawyers of any prominence 
traveled twice a year over the circuit.  A company of ten or fifteen 
generally made the round together, and their social habits commonly made 
the jouney far from an unpleasant one.  Law-books were scarce; only a 
few text-books were in existence, and the reports were meager in 
comparison with the great numbers which now crowd the shelves of every 
legal library.  The young lawyer was in consequence compelled to 
thoroughly understand the principles of law and adapt his facts to them 
- a training which produced able and ready lawyers.  Judge Thornton's 
progress was rapid. He soon obtained a high standing at the bar, and was 
usually retained in all cases of importance.  He practiced by himself 
till 1858.  He resided at Shelbyville till November, 1879, when he became 
a resident of Decatur.  He is now a member of the law-firm of Thornton, 
Eldridge & Hostetler, at Decatur.  
	He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1848, which 
framed the second constitution of the State of Illinois.  In 1850 he was 
elected a member of the Sixteenth General Assembly.  At that time the 
questions connected with the building of railroads through the state 
assumed great importance, and Judge Thornton, though a whig, was sent to 
the legislature from a democratic district, as a warm friend of the 
railroads, and in favor of the state granting the lands given by the 
general government to build the Illinois Central Railroad to private 
individuals who should undertake the construction of the road, instead of 
the state itself.  In 1862 he was elected a member of the constitutional 
convention which held its sessions in the winter of 1862-3.  During the 
rebellion he occupied the position of a war-democrat, and in various 
speeches sustained the government in its efforts to break down the 
rebellion and preserve the Union.  In the autumn of 1864 he was elected 
to the Thirty-Ninth Congress and took his seat in March 1865, just as 
the war was being brought to a close.  He was appointed a member of the 
committee on claims, and performed much arduous labor, the committee 
being obliged to report on a vast number of claims presented immediately 
after the close the war.  He was renominated, but, though his election 
would have been beyond question, he declined becoming a candidate, 
preferring to practice his profession.  He served on the supreme bench 
of Illinois from July, 1870, to June, 1873.  During that period the 
supreme court had before it an immense amount of business, which 
required uninterrupted and laborious attention.  Litigation was then at 
its height.  The dockets were enormously large, and the position of 
supreme judge involved an immense amount of continuous labor.  He 
resigned to resume his practice.
	It is scarcely necessary to speak of Judge Thornton's 
charactistics as a lawyer, for his name has long been familiar to the 
bar of this state.  His great industry has made him thoroughly 
acquainted with the learning of the law, and his natural abilities long 
since gave him a commanding position in his profession.  A strong liking 
for legal work, and especially for the trial of a case in court, has 
made the practice of the law, to him, a pleasant and congenial 
occupation.  He has great strength as an advocate.  While on the supreme 
bench, he was regarded as one of its ablest members.  He was first 
married, in 1850, to Mildred Thornton, who died in 1856.  His marriage 
to Kate Smith, of Shelby county, occurred in 1866.  He has had four 
children, of whom three are living.
  
Eldridge Hostetler Smith Thornton Towles
=
Caroline-VA Danville-Boyle Decatur-Macon-IL England Gallatin-TN MO 
OH Shelbyville-Shelby-IL 

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/bourbon/thornton.a.txt