Lake County Ohio GenWeb

John Walworth

This biography is taken from History of Geauga and Lake counties; Williams Brothers, 1878.

Transcribed and submitted by Becky Falin, 1996.

John Walworth, who came from Aurora, New York, to Mentor, Lake county, in 1799, was one of the most prominent settlers of the Reserve. After remaining in Mentor through the winter he returned to New York, and in the following year brought his family to Painesville, arriving on the 8th of April. As an evidence of his capability, - for capability to fill an office was regarded in those days as one of the qualifications a man should possess to entitle him to favor of appointment or election, - it may be stated that Mr. Walworth was appointed as justice of the peace for Trumbull county, 1812; associate judge, 1803; as postmaster at Painesville, 1804; inspector of the port of Cuyhoga, 1805; collector of the district of Erie, 1806; associate judge of Geauga county, 1806; and postmaster at Cleveland in the same year, and that when the county of Cuyahoga was organized he was made county clerk and recorder. Mr. Walworth remained in Painesville but a short time, going from there to Cleveland, where he had an office, which was, we believe, the first frame building erected there; at any rate, it was the only one standing in 1810. Mr. Walworth was born at Groton, New London county, Connecticut, in 1765, and died in the dark days of the war, September 10, 1812. His wife, a native of the same place in which he was born, died in 1853, in Cleveland.