D.D.
in 48th year of his ministry
[He graduated from Yale College in 1838; studied theology at Yale Theological Seminary.
He was ordained as pastor of the Congregational church at Berlin, July 6th 1842. He served this church ten years. From 1852 to 1876, Mr. WOODWORTH was successively pastor at Waterbury; Mansfield, Ohio; Springfield, Mass; Plymouth, Mass.; Painesville, Ohio; Belchertown, Mass.; and Grinnell, Iowa. On January 6, 1876, he was installed as pastor of Berlin, the first parish he served from 1842-1852.]
[WILLIAM WALTER WOODWORTH was born in that part of
Middletown, which is now the town of Cromwell, Conn.,
October 16, 1813, the son of Walter and Mary (Sage) Woodworth. His father died m 1822, and he had worked four years at the trade of a silversmith before he began to prepare for College with the desire of entering the ministry
After graduation he had charge of the academy in Westfield,
Mass., for one year, and then spent one year in the Yale Divinity School, and one in Andover Seminary. On July 6, 1842, he was ordained as pastor of the Congregational Church in Berlin, Conn., and was dismissed from this charge, May 2, 1852, to accept a call to the First Congregational Church in Waterbury, Conn., where
his pastorate continued from September 29, 1852, to May 2, 1858. He then preached for two years in Mansfield, Ohio, then for two years in the Olivet Congregational Church, Springfield, Mass, then for two years in Plymouth, Mass., then for two years in Painesville, Ohio. On May 16, 1866, he was installed over the Congregational Church in Belchertown, Mass., where he remained until May 4, 1870 He then removed to Grinnell, Iowa, where he was installed over the Congregational Church on March 1, 1871 From this charge he was dismissed on November 28,1875, on receiving a call to his first charge, in Berlin, where he was installed on January 6, 1876. Here he continued, to great acceptance, in the fulness of his ripened powers, until his sudden death On June 12, 1890, he was thrown from his carriage while driving, and sustained severe injuries, from which he died, at his home in Berlin, two days later, in the 77th year of his age. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by Iowa College in 1879. He was married, October 26, 1842, to Lucy, daughter of Dr. William Atwater (Yale Coll 1807), of Westfield, Mass., who died July 4, 1844. He was next married, October 9, 1845, to Sarah U, daughter of the Rev. Charles A. Goodrich (Yale Coll. 1812), of Berlin, who died March 11, 1858. He was next married, April 11, 1866, to Lydia A, daughter of William V. Sessions, of Painesville, O., who survives him. The only child of his first wife was graduated at Yale College in 1865. Two daughters and a son (Iowa College 1876) by his second marriage are also living,—three sons having died early. The children by his third marriage were four sons, of whom the eldest died in infancy, and
two others are now members of Amherst College.
-June 1890, from the obituary record of graduates of Yale University]