Amos G. Thornton

Amos G. Thornton, his personal and family background, and his role in the Mountain Meadows Massacre

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Amos G. Thornton

1832-1902

Biographical Sketch

Early Life

Amos Griswold Thornton's forebears were in Canada, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and before that Yorkshire in the North of England, Cheshire in the North West; Wales in the West; Shropshire, Warwickshire and Northhamptonshire in the West Midlands; Lincolnshire and Derbyshire in the East Midlands; Devonshire, Somersetshire, Dorsetshire, Glouchestershire and Wiltshire in the South West; Hertfordshire and Essex in East Anglia; and London, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Kent in the South East. In other words, Thornton's forebears were from all over England and Wales. What they have in common is that they all immigrated to Massachusetts and Connecticut and, most probably, were Puritans.

A native of Ontario, Canada, Thornton himself became a westering American who pioneered in western Illinois, then moved to frontier Utah where he was a pioneer in southern Utah.

Thornton was born in Pickering, Ontario, Canada. The Thorntons join the Mormons and settled in western Illinois in the 1840s.

Journey to Utah

They moved to Utah and many of the Thorntons settled in American Fork, thirty-five miles south of Great Salt Lake City. 
In 1853, Amos Thornton was called as an Indian missionary/interpreter and in 1854 he moved to southern Utah, settling in Pinto, midway between Cedar City and the Mountain Meadows. In 1855, he was among the Indian interpreters who moved to the Santa Clara and built a small fort, a dam and an irrigation canal.

In the Iron Military District: Sergeant Amos Thornton, Company H, John D. Lee's 4th Battalion

In 1857, the 24-year-old Thornton was a sergeant of a militia platoon in Pinto, which was midway between Cedar City and Mountain Meadows. His platoon was attached to Captain Alexander Ingram's Company H in Major John D. Lee's 4th Battalion. On Sunday, September 6, Thornton and two other unidentified militiamen visited the emigrants at Mountain Meadows. According to Richard Robinson, Amos Thornton delivered an express to Pinto shortly after the emigrants had passed. Joseph Clews/Clewes recollected that on Monday, September 7, he carried an express from Cedar City to Pinto which he delivered to Richard Robinson or Amos Thornton. Thornton rode southwest along the trail from Pinto to Mountain Meadows, intent on delivering a "cease and desist" order to John D. Lee. However, Thornton failed to encounter Lee at Mountain Meadows. Unbeknownst to Thornton, Lee had ridden south in search of the militia detachments from the "southern settlements," Fort Clara and Washington. Thornton's other activities during the four-day siege and the final massacre are unknown. 

"___ Thornton" was named in the Judge John Cradlebaugh's 1859 arrest warrant. Thornton was also identified in T.B.H. Stenhouse's Rocky Mountain Saints whose list of participants followed the 1859 arrest warranty. Thornton was not mentioned during the 1875-76 Lee trials nor in Lee's posthumous memoir, Mormonism Unveiled.

Later Life

The year previous to the massacre, during the Mormon "Reformation," Thornton married Mary Whitaker (1832-1914) of Lancashire, England. In 1862, Thornton married a second wife,Charity Artemesia Butler (1834-1908) of Kentucky. Thornton and his two wives remained in Pinto the rest of their lives. His two wives bore him sixteen children, nine of whom survived into the twentieth century. He also adopted an Indian boy whom he named Alma.

References

Alder and Brooks, The History of Washington County, 20, 49 fn 4; Bagley, Blood of the Prophets, 128; Brooks, "Indian Sketches from . . .Brown and Hamblin," Utah Historical Quarterly, 29/4 (October 1961), 357; Brooks, "Indian Relations on the Mormon Frontier, Utah Historical Quarterly, 12/1-2 (Jan.-Apr. 1944), 34; FamilySearch.org; Jenson, Encyclopedic History of the Latter-day Saints, ; Woodbury, 145 fn 35, 36;  "The Cotton Mission," Utah Historical Quarterly, 29/3 (July 1961), 201-202; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled; Lee Trial transcripts; Statement of Joseph Clews, in Turley and Walker, Mountain Meadows Massacre: Jenson and Morris Collections, 168, 170, 184, 187, Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, 152, 164, 214, 217, Appendix C, 263.

External Links

For further information on Amos G. Thornton, see:

• http://www.lofthouse.com/USA/Utah/washington/wpa/pinto.html

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