William Walworth

• Born: 1725-1726, Walloomsac, Rensselaer, NY
• Marriage: Sarah Coville about 1768 in Walloomsac, Rensselaer, NY
• Died: 1810, Utica NY

  General notes:

Silversmith

  Events in his life were:

• Extracted from The Walworths Of America Comprising Five Chapters of Family History, With Additional Chapters of Genealogy by Clarence A. Walworth (1897):
  
  ". . . only child of Thomas of Lebanon, and grandson of William of Fisher's Island, was destined by his father to be a farmer, but he did not like the business, and chose rather to be a silversmith. His father yielded at last to his inclination and sent him from home to learn the trade. He did not learn much of it in the regular way, for his master died before his apprenticeship was ended. William, however, clung steadily to his first vocation and sought to make up for the deficiency of his instruction by private experimenting of his own. As a business this did not lead to much profit. He succeeded better in securing a wife, and with her as large a family of children as a poor man need hope for.
  William seems to have been one of those peculiar characters that are as little fitted to live in this world as if they had been born on the moon. He was industrious, devoted even, to his trade, but his labor brought him no profit. It did not feed or clothe his family. And yet with that strange fatality which always hangs over men of this sort, children multiplied upon his helplessness. He had friends, and some of them aided him to a little practical experience by getting his name upon their paper, but they could not show him how to get it off again. This made him a wanderer upon the earth, always seeking to repair his broken fortunes by moving.
  But in truth there was no rest for a spirit like his except in his workshop. Nothing but care and sorrow waited for him on the outside. According to the traditions handed down in his branch of the family, when all the rest of the household were buried in sleep, he would get up, kindle the fire in his shop, put on his crucibles and endeavor to test the true proportions necessary to mingle his metals. But whatever success he may have had as an inventor, it brought little bread and butter in at his door.
  In the early part of the Revolutionary War, William, with his wife and first three children, was living at Bennington, Vt. They were there at the time of the battle, Aug. 6, 1777. On that occasion William was twice taken prisoner by the British and twice escaped. From Bennington the family moved to Easton, Wash ington county, where several of his children were born, and where he seems to have remained until near the close of the century, when he took up his abode at Utica.
  The rest of the family did not long remain with him in this new abode. William, as we have already seen, was constitutionally unfitted to provide for a family. All of his children that were not old enough to help themselves were forced to seek homes among their relatives.
  The mother with Daniel, her youngest child, went westward as far as Alabama, Genesee County, N. Y., were she lived with her son James. Sarah died in 1810. Her husband closed his career about the same time at Utica. He was found dead in his shop lying among the implements of his trade which he had handled so long, loved so much, and which had served him so little."

William married Sarah Coville about 1768 in Walloomsac, Rensselaer, NY. (Sarah Coville was born on 27 Nov 1748 in Walloomsac, Rensselaer, NY, christened on 27 Nov 1748 in Killingly CT and died in 1810 in Alabama NY.)