Perhaps the oldest member of the Thornton family to have ever lived in southern Kentucky, Elizabeth Smith Thornton (Oct. 1814 - Sept. 11, 1916) died in Simpson County, KY, just shy of her 102 birthday. Her children often told tales that she was part Cherokee and would brush her teeth with ashes in the traditional manner. Her birth location was unclear even to her children who reported her as having been born in Tennessee, North Carolina, or Virginia. She married Robert Benton Thornton in 1840 and had ten children: William Frank, Margaret Jones, Polly Thornton (mother of Maggie Campbell Thornton), Elizabeth, Nancy, James Allen, John H. (my 2nd great-grandfather), Allen M., Thomas Benton, and Robert Franklin.
