Harry I. Thornton

{{Infobox officeholder | image = Colonel Harry I. Thornton.jpg | birth_name = Harry Innes Thornton Jr. | birth_place = Greene County, Alabama | birth_date = 1834 | death_date = February 25, 1895 | death_place = Fresno, California | office = California State Senate | term = 1850s | party = Democratic }}

'''Harry Innes Thornton Jr.''' (c. 1834 – February 25, 1895) was an American Democratic politician and attorney in California.

== Biography == 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.<ref>{{cite news|title=Alabama-Whig Convention|url=http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030213/1844-01-19/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1789&sort=date&date2=1924&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=0&words=Harry+I+Thornton&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=harry+i.+thornton&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1|accessdate=July 25, 2017|work=New-York Daily Tribune|publisher=Library of Congress Historic Newspapers|date=January 19, 1844|page=2}}</ref> By 1851, Thornton Sr. moved to California and was appointed to the federal Public Land Commission to address property ownership in California.<ref>{{cite news|title=California Land Commissioner|url=http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82014594/1851-09-16/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1789&sort=date&date2=1924&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=2&words=Harry+I+Thornton&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=harry+i.+thornton&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1|accessdate=July 25, 2017|work=American Telegraph (Wash, DC)|publisher=Library of Congress Historic Newspapers|date=September 16, 1851|page=2}}</ref> By 1854, Thornton Jr.'s sister and her husband, James D. Thornton, had moved to San Francisco, also.

== Career == Thornton Jr. was a member of the California State Senate during the 1850s.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.amazon.com/Thornton-Resolutions-delivered-California-legislature/dp/B0008ABRAY|title=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|last=Thornton|first=Harry I.|work=Amazon.com|accessdate=26 June 2013}}</ref> 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.<ref name="obit">{{cite news|title=Col. H. I. Thornton Breathes His Last|url=http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn94052989/1895-02-26/ed-1/seq-7/#date1=1789&index=12&rows=20&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&words=Harry+HARRY+I+THORNTON+Thornton&proxdistance=5&date2=1924&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=harry+i.+thornton&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1|accessdate=July 25, 2017|work=The Morning Call (San Francisco, CA)|publisher=Library of Congress Historic Newspapers|date=February 26, 1895|page=7}}</ref> He resigned from the Legislature and went to serve in the Army of the Confederate States of America.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.nevadaobserver.com/Reading%20Room%20Documents/harry_i_thornton%20(1913).htm|last=Goodwin|first=C. C.|date=March 17, 2008|work=As I Remember Them, 1913, cited in the Nevada Observer|title=Harry I. Thornton|accessdate=26 June 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101127110548/http://nevadaobserver.com/Reading%20Room%20Documents/harry_i_thornton%20(1913).htm|archive-date=27 November 2010|url-status=dead}}</ref> He was wounded at the Battle of Chickamauga from September 18 to 20, 1863 while serving with the 58th Regiment Alabama Infantry.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Vassar|first1=Alexander C.|title=Legislators of California|date=2011|url=http://media.onevoter.org/reports/Legislators_of_California.pdf|accessdate=23 November 2016}}</ref> After the war, he returned to California and practiced law in that state and Nevada,<ref>{{cite news|title=The Democracy of White Pine are 'Moving'|url=http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84022040/1870-03-25/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1789&sort=date&rows=20&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=4&words=Harry+I+Thornton&proxdistance=5&date2=1924&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=harry+i.+thornton&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=4|accessdate=July 25, 2017|work=The Carson daily appeal|publisher=Library of Congress Historic Newspapers|date=March 25, 1870|page=2}}</ref> handling complex mining litigation.<ref name="obit" /> He died in Fresno, California, on February 25, 1895.

==References== <references />

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thornton, Harry I.}} Category:1830s births Category:1895 deaths Category:Confederate States Army officers Category:People of Alabama in the American Civil War Category:People of California in the American Civil War Category:Democratic Party California state senators Category:Lawyers from San Francisco Category:19th-century American lawyers Category:19th-century members of the California State Legislature