James Sheppard Thornton was born on February 25th, 1817. After his father’s death, he was raised by his guardians and family friends, the future President Franklin Pierce and Senator Atherton. At the young age of 14, he was appointed as midshipman in the US Navy, where he served on the frigate Columbia and the sloop John Adams. Five years later, he was sent to the US Naval Academy and the next year went to sea. By 1850 he was surveying in the Pacific and resigned his commission to work in the gold fields in California, as did many people during the great Gold Rush. He rejoined the US Navy in 1854, where he was wounded in a duel. At the start of the Civil War, he was Lieutenant Commander, and executive officer on Admiral Farragut’s flagship, the Hartford, where he was recognized for covering the sides of the ship with chains to protect it from cannon fire. In 1862 he commanded the Winona and then of the Kearsarge.

This famous battle between the Kearsarge and the Alabama, in 1864 has gone down in Naval History when the Alabama sank. James Sheppard Thornton received a Congressional vote of thanks and was given command of the Kearsarge. He was promoted to the rank of Captain at the Portsmouth Navy Yard in 1872. His last duty assignment was on the USS Monongahela when he was injured aboard a ship in the Pacific and sent home from South Africa. Upon arrival in the US, he died in 1875 in a hospital in Germantown PA, after which his body was returned to Merrimack, where he is buried today. He is further honored by having a torpedo boat, “The Thornton” named after him.