My Genealogy Hound

ANDREW N. THORINGTON, turnkey of the Hampshire County Jail at Northampton for the past twelve years, was born in Sturbridge, Worcester County, Mass., June 6, 1844, the only child of Andrew B. and Mary (Haskell) Thorington. He comes of heroic Revolutionary stock, his great-grandfather, William Thorington, having been a soldier of the Revolutionary army. His name was written on the muster roll as William Thornton, and his widow was obliged to use that name in applying for a pension. After the close of the great struggle he settled in Rensselaer County, New York, where his son Abraham, grandfather of the present Mr. Thorington, was born.

Abraham Thorington was reared to farming. After his marriage with Miss Breninthol, whose father came over from Germany as a stowaway on one of the large sailing-vessels, he purchased a farm in Pittstown, Rensselaer County, where he engaged in general farming during the remainder of his life. His wife died in 1849, aged threescore years. His death occurred some ten years later, at the age of seventy years. They reared two sons and two daughters, of whom the only one now living is Mrs. Elizabeth Dean, a widow residing in Iowa. Andrew B. Thorington was born at Troy, N. Y., in September, 1822. In 1840, before reaching his majority, he was united in marriage with Mary Haskell, a native of Whitingham, Vt., where their union was celebrated. He was a farmer by occupation, and lived in Massachusetts many years of his life, finally locating in Charlemont, where he departed this life in March, 1895. His wife died in 1882, aged sixty-one years.

Andrew N. Thorington, the subject of this short biography, received a good education. At the age of eighteen years he left home, and became an attendant in the Asylum for the Insane in Northampton, at first under the instruction of Dr. Prince, but subsequently under the regime of Dr. Pliny Earle. He has been engaged in similar work much of his lifetime, having been with Dr. Shaw in Middletown, Conn., and in Worcester under Dr. Bemis. He was a salesman in Malone, N.Y., for two years, and an employee in a shoe factory at Brookfield, Mass., for a time. In August, 1883, he accepted his present position, in which he has given general satisaction.

On August 4, 1887, Mr. Thorington was married to Clara E. Cooley, one of the eight children of the late Calvin Cooley. They have one son, Carl Haskell Thorington, now three years old. Politically, Mr. Thorington is a steadfast Republican. He is a Knight Templar and a Past Sachem of the tribe of Red Men. He is also a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and has been Junior Vice-Commander of the William L. Baker Post No. 66. He was a soldier in the late Civil War, having enlisted from Shelburne Falls, July 21, 1864, in the Sixtieth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, going out as a one hundred days’ man.