My Genealogy Hound

ABRAM THORNTON. The hotel in America has attained to a state of development which, in many of its phases, is unknown in other countries. The rapid growth of business of all kinds throughout the United States, during the years that have intervened since the Civil War, has brought into existence trade conditions which demand the constant employment of what cannot be called anything less than a magnificent army of commercial tourists, who are today the principal support of hotels in large and small towns, and to whose taste and comfort hotel-keepers of high and low degree must cater, if they would make their houses popular and profitable. Bridgman, Mich., is not without a first-class hotel, and a most attractive and homelike one is Hotel Thornton, of which Abram Thornton is owner and proprietor. This gentleman is also engaged as a real-estate and loan agent, and is one of the largest land-owners in Lake Township.

Mr. Thornton is a product of the Empire State, born November 17, 1827, to the union of Ebenezer and Abigail (Wood) Thornton, natives of New York. The father was a carpenter and house-joiner by trade. At an early date he moved to Toledo, Ohio, and there passed the remainder of his days. He and his wife reared a family of six children, four boys and two girls: William, Albert, John, Abram; Lucinda, deceased, who was the wife of Davis Glass; and Harriet, wife of Charles Cooley. Abram Thornton was educated in Monroe County, Mich., and from there he commenced life for himself by going to Michigan City, where he built a lumber-yard. He was engaged in the lumber business on this portion of the lake for eighteen years, when he sold out and went to the lower portion of the lake, where he engaged in steamboating. Before going on the Lower Lakes he was extensively engaged in trading in land in Muskingum County, Mich.

Finally, in 1880, Mr. Thornton quit the lake, brought a steam-mill to this section, and for a number of years was engaged in the lumber business. He is now the owner of a steam sawmill, and also owns seven hundred acres, on which the mill is located. This is a fine fruit farm and two hundred acres are under cultivation. On this is a fine cranberry marsh and a, line orchard of peach and apple trees, etc. He also raises strawberries, red and black raspberries, gooseberries, etc. Aside from this farm Mr. Thornton is the owner of eight hundred acres in Muskingum County, which is mostly timber-land, and besides his beautiful hotel several private residences in the village of Bridgman. He is quite actively engaged in the real-estate business and in loaning money.

In the year 1848, our subject was married to Miss Mary Richardson, a native of Lambertsville, Mich., and seven children have blessed this union, five of whom are now living: Theodore A., of Chattanooga, Tenn.; Savannah, wife of Charles Vance; John, of Chicago; Thomas, of this county, now residing in Thornton’s Valley; and Peter, of Lambertsville, Mich. Politically, Mr. Thornton votes with the Republican party. He is a man of social instincts, hospitable and entertaining, and nothing delights him so much as to have guests about him in comfort, enjoying themselves. His acquaintance, as one would naturally suppose, is a wide one, and his friends are legion.