ular and detailed manner, which makes him the principal authority upon the incidents attending it. It is there stated that Thornton and his wife left Quincy, Illinois, on the 18th of April, and went to Independence to join the Oregon and California emigrants. He left that place May 12th, and soon overtook the California Company under W. H. Russell. The train with which Thornton travelled together with Russell's made a caravan of 72 wagons, 130 men, 65 women, and 125 children. The ill-fated Donner party subsequently joined them, and all travelled together, or not far apart, to Fort Bridger, where about 80 persons were persuaded to take the newly discovered route to the Humboldt Valley by the way of Weber Canon and Salt Lake, which Hastings, who had come to Fort Bridger to meet the immigrants, recommended
J. Quinn Thornton was born August 24, 1810, near Point Pleasant, Mason County, West Virginia. From his manuscript Autobiography, it appears his ancestors arrived in eastern Virginia in 1633 from England, and that the Thornton family are now widely scattered over the southern and western states. In his infancy Thornton removed with his parents to Champaign County, Ohio, and grew up a studious boy 5 reading all the books that came in his way, among others Sully's Memoirs, from which he drew his favorite nom de plume of 'Achilles De Harley,' used in later years as a signature to certain political articles in the New York Tribune. His mother desired him to study for the ministry; but he chose law as a profession, and went to England to study, remaining nearly three years in London, living in retirement and learning little of the great world about him. At the end of that time he returned to Virginia, and studied law under John Howe Peyton, of Staunton in that state, being admitted to the bar in May 1833. Thornton says that during the period of his studies he became interested in trying to discover the nature of gravitation; being of the belief that the word 'attraction,' as applied to gravitation, is a misnomer, and that the force is external to rather than inherent in matter; and claims that the identity of that force was discovered by him in August 1832. The results of his investigations on this subject, being committed to manuscript, were twice destroyed by fire, since which no further effort has been made to place his discovery before the world. After being admitted to the bar, Thornton attended law lectures at the University of Virginia under Prof. John A. G. Davis. Having had all this preparation, he opened a law office in Palmyra, Missouri, in 1835, and in 1836 edited a political paper m that place, in the interest of Martin Van Buren during the presidential campaign. On the 8th of Feb., 1838, he married Mrs Nancy M. Logue of Hannibal in that state; and in 1841 removed to Quincy, Illinois. The Oregon Question being popularly discussed by all ranks of society about this time, led him, as it did thousands of others, to think of adding his individual weight to the American claim, and in 1840 he resolved to emigrate. I am indebted to Mr Thornton for many favors. When in Salem, in 1878, he not only gave me a valuable dictation, but placed me in possession of many important documents collected by him during an eventful life.
