Reuben Hyde Walworth
Eminent Judge, Churchman, Temperance Leader, Author, Host
Reuben Hvde Walworth was born at Bozrah, Connecticut, near New London, the fourth of 10 children of Beniamin Walworth and Apphia Hyde Cardell. When he was 4, his parents moved to Hoosick, Rensselaer County, New York, where Reuben worked on the farm and received his schooling. At 17 he became a law clerk in Troy, New York, at the office of John Russell, a noted practitioner of his day. In 1810, after demonstrating promising ability, he was admitted to the New York Bar and practiced in Plattsburgh, where he met and married Maria Ketchum Averill and had six children.
In Plattsburgh, Walworth was appointed a county judge.
After being elected and serving one term in Congress, he was appointed by the governor as a circuit judge, a post he held from 1823–1828, handling both civil and criminal cases. He moved to Saratoga Springs, purchasing the estate known as Pine Grove from Judge Henry Walton. In 1828 his distinction as a jurist earned him an appointment as Chancellor of the State of New York, in the state's highest judicial court, the Court of Chancery.
Four years after his wife Maria died, in 1847, Walworth married the widowed Sarah Ellen Smith Hardin, who went by Ellen. She brought a style of Southern hospitality to Pine Grove.
Walworth continued his involvement in the wider community, serving as a Presbyterian elder, president of the American Temperance Union, Grand Master of the Masons, and officer of the Bible Society. He died in 1867. The Walworth Family Collection is an important part of the Saratoga Springs History Collection.