Johnston's Elder Abel Thornton

History Notes is a biweekly entry in the Sun Rise that features a passage from the Johnston Historical Society. This week’s story comes from November 2013.

Abel Thornton was born on the family farm on Hopkins Avenue on Aug. 16, 1799. The house, labeled “Deac. Thornton Est” on the 1870 Beers map of the town, still stands along with the family cemetery out back.

His father was a farmer and Abel received only the education that any child of a farming family would receive at that time. In Abel’s autobiography, “The Life and Experience of Abel Thornton,” he tells us that he went to school summer and winter until he was 9 years old. After that he worked on the farm in the good weather, but went to school some every winter until his 18th year.

The youngest of five children, Abel writes that he had no special religious inclination in his teenage years. Rather, he wanted to be well liked and did what any other child might do at the time. Around his 20th year, though, he started thinking about God and religion, topics that determined the rest of his short life.

He started attending Baptist meetings (i.e. services) in Johnston and neighboring towns. Even though he was not formally trained in religious matters (not unusual in those days for preachers), he appears to have had a gift for preaching. He traveled far and wide in New England and New York doing what he loved, preaching to various congregations.

Sometimes, meetings were held in meeting houses and sometimes in people’s houses. He details many of his appearances, including some of the Johnston. On May 16, 1825, he preached at Benjamin Brown’s house in Johnston. In 1826, he preached at the homes of A. Randall, Samuel Tefft and Olney Taylor.

He affiliated with the Freewill Baptists all his life. He does mention that in April of 1820 he attended a meeting at the North Meeting House in Johnston. That would have been Samuel Windsor’s Six Principle Baptist Meeting House in Belknap. Windsor was dead at that point, and the building was not used on a regular basis. Meetings were held there occasionally at least until 1825.

By 1826, though, it was apparent that the Elder Abel Thornton was seriously ill. He appears to have had tuberculosis. He writes of his growing infirmity. On Oct. 16, 1827, he passed away. His autobiography was published in 1828 by the Rhode Island Quarterly Magazine (Baptist).

(Note: the full text of this book can be found online. Most of the book is a description of his travels as a preacher, most of it outside our town.)