John Thorburn was born in Lesmahgo, Scotland, on March 29, 1824, to James and Christian Boe Thorburn. He spent his early life in the common schools and herding cattle. In 1847, at 23 years old, he served as an apprentice to a blacksmith and worked six years a a journeyman.

In 1848, John and his brother Robert came to America on the ship Clutha. They initially arrived in New York, then worked for a short tiem in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and came to Michigan later that year. When the arrived in Michigan, they located on 120 acres of government land in Delhi Township. The land they settled on was located 3/4 mile south of Delhi Center. Over the wintertime of 1848, John and Robert chopped four or five acres of timber and built a log cabin for their parents who would arrive in the Spring of 1849. That land would belong to their parents, John and Robert’s sister, Jane, moved nearby as well. She and her husband William Sommerville settled on 40 acres adjoining the original 120 acres. The whole family eventually made their way to Delhi.

On January 26, 1854, John married Hannah Jane Olds, daughter of Alanson Olds, the proprietor of the Olds Hotel at North Lansing. The couple had three sons, James Boe Thorburn (1855-1921), Dr. William Warren Thorburn (1858-1924), and Robert Clark Thorburn (1865-1903).

John spent four years work in his trade in Ypsilanti, later moving to Mason. In 1852, he located in Lansing and built a brick shop on the south side of East Franklin Avenue. He ran the shop for five years and did very successful busienss. This success allowed John to move his family to 950 acres of land in Delhi Township.

John and Hannah Thorburn, along with Casper Lott, were two of the key families which founded the Holt Presbyterian Church in April 1865. John’s son James B. Thorburn married Casper’s daughter Louisa Mary Lott. Many pioneering families intermarried, and there were few more prominent names in early Delhi than Thorburn and Lott. John Thorburn was a Republican politically, though he never held elected office.

John is described as “a man of more than ordinary energy and force of character, and had by frugality and honesty of purpose become the possessor of 940 acres of the best lands in Ingham County.” He died on December 20, 1906, at his home in Delhi Township. Hannah died in 1889, about 15 years earlier. She was described as a woman of “sterling worth and strong personality.” The couple are buried in Maple Ridge Cemetery. John’s parents James and Christian Boe Thorburn are buried in Pioneer Cemetery.