James D. Thornton

James Dabney Thornton (January 19, 1823 – September 27, 1902) was an American lawyer and judge who served as associate justice of the Supreme Court of California from 1880 to 1891. Early life and education Thornton was born January 19, 1823, at Oak Hill in Cumberland, Virginia, to William Mynn Thornton and Elizabeth Anderson. He studied at the University of Virginia, graduating in 1841. After college, he read law for a year and then worked three years in a commercial house in Richmond, Virginia, while continuing his legal studies. In November 1848, he and his wife moved to Eutaw, Alabama, where his wife's father, Harry Innis Thornton Sr., was a judge and member of the Alabama Legislature. By 1851, Harry I. Thornton had moved to California and was appointed to the federal Public Land Commission to address property ownership in California. In 1854, James Thornton also determined to move to California, arriving in San Francisco in June 1854. There, he started a law firm with his father-in-law and John James Williams, whom he had befriended in Richmond, Virginia. Judicial career In 1856, Thornton served as a district court commissioner for the Fourth district court in San Francisco. In August 1858, he was nominated by the Democratic Lecompton Party for judge of the Fourth district court. In June 1861, he attended the state convention of the Breckenridge Democratic Party, with pro-Southern sympathies. During the Civil War, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, as did Solomon Heydenfeldt, who was born in Charleston, South Carolina. At that time, his wife's brother, the attorney Harry Innis Thornton Jr., gave a speech on the floor of the California State Senate defending the Southern states' rights to succeed, and afterwards left to fight for the Confederacy.