Jacob Montgomery Thornburgh (1837 - 1890) was an American politician, representative for the 2nd congressional district of Tennessee. He was born on July 2, 1837 in New Market, Tennessee in Jefferson County. He completed preparatory studies, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1861, after which he commenced practice in Jefferson County. On July 11, 1863, during the Civil War, he entered the Union Army as a private and was promoted to a lieutenant colonel of the Fourth Regiment, Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry. He returned to Jefferson County and continued the practice of law. He moved to Knoxville, Tennessee in 1867.

He was appointed attorney general of the third judicial circuit of Tennessee in 1866, and was elected in 1868 and 1870. He was the United States commissioner at the International Exposition held in Vienna, Austria in 1872. He was elected as a Republican to the Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth Congresses. He served from March 4, 1873 to March 3, 1879, but he was not a candidate for renomination in 1878. He was a delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1872, 1876, and 1880. He retired from the public life and again resumed the practice of law in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he died on September 19, 1890. He was interred in Old Gray Cemetery.

References

• Find-A-Grave biography