The following was written by the historian John Bennett Boddie:
1041Henry Thornton, eldest son of Roger and Isabel Thornton, was born in Richmond Co. , Va. Nov. 15, 1709 and died, probably in Granville Co., N. C. some time after 1754. He was living in Orange Co., Va. in 1738, when he was administrator of Richard Parsons, decd. (Orange Co. W.B.1, pp. 51-52), but moved soon after to Granville Co., North Carolina. His wife was the daughter of Abraham Bledsoe, formerly of Orange Co., Virginia, who died in Granville Co. N. C. in 1753. Abraham Bledsoe's will, dated Mar. 15, 1753 and probated in Granville Co. in May, 1753, mentions his wife Sarah, sons Isaac, Abraham, Thomas, Jacob, Moses, and Aaron Bledsoe, and his son-in-law, Henry Thornton (Brockman "Orange Co. Families", Vol. II, p. 11). Henry Thornton deeded 200 acres of land to Richard Pinion in Granville Co. Dec. 1, 1750 and on Dec. 2, 1750 was deeded 600 acres by his brother, Roger Thornton (Granville Co. D. B. "B", pp. 4 and 11). He was in Capt. Sugars Jones' Company of Granville Co. Militia Oct. 8, 1754 in the Great Muster for the French and Indian War (N. C. Colonial and State Records, Vol. 22, p. 377). After this he disappears from the records. He was probably the father of a James Thornton who married Elizabeth Jones Mar. 2, 1762 in Granville Co. Another son may have been Henry Thornton, a soldier from North Carolina in the Revolutionary War who died in service, according to depositions recorded in the Revolutionary Records at Raleigh. Abraham, David and Thomas Thornton, mentioned in Orange Co. , N. C. in 1768 in the trouble connected with the "Regulators" movement, may have been other sons (N. C. Colonial and State Records, Vol. 7, pp. 734 and 735).