Kentucky: A History of the State, Battle, Perrin, & Kniffin, ed. 8-B,
Boyd County

John W. Thornton was born in Portsmouth, O., March 9, 1844, and is a son of
Ezra C. and Sarah Ann (Graves) Thornton, natives, respectively, of New York
and Ohio.  Ezra C. Thornton, a Methodist preacher, brought his family to
Catlettsburg, Ky., in 1852; in 1854 he started the first newspaper in the
county, the Big Sandy News, but in 1855 was killed by the cars while going
to visit his father in Wisconsin, at the age of thirty-seven years.  John W.
Thornton was reared in Catlettsburg, and received his preliminary education
at the Catlettsburg Academy, which had been built by his father, and of
which the latter was president at the time of his untimely death.  In
August, 1862, our subject enlisted in the Tenth Kentucky Cavalry, served one
year; on his return he entered the Forth-fifth Kentucky Mounted Infantry as
First Lieutenant; then raised a company in Carter County for the Fifty-third
Kentucky Mounted Infantry, and was out as First Lieutenant one year.  After
his final return to Catlettsburg he served as deputy county clerk from 1866
to 1868, and in 1868 was appointed United States Storekeeper, Gauger and
Deputy Collector, holding these offices eighteen years.  In 1886 he was
elected county clerk on the Republican ticket.  He was married in December,
1867, to Miss Mary M. Crawford of Carter County, a daughter of George W.
Crawford, deceased, and grand-daughter of John Crawford, captain in the war
of 1812, and founder of Mount Sterling, Ky.  To this marriage have been born
three children, Mamie, Ethel and Crawford S.  Mr. Thornton is an Odd Fellow,
and as appears above, is in politics a Republican. 

Thornton Graves Crawford 
=
NY OH WI Carter-KY

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/boyd/thornton.jw.txt