The Life of JONATHAN WORTH
JONATHAN WORTH
1802-1869
LAWYER, BUSINESSMAN, LEGISLATOR
CIVIL WAR TREASURER
RECONSTRUCTION GOVERNOR
1865-1868
CHRIST CHURCH SECTION, LOT 1
Jonathan Worth was born on November 18, 1802, in Center, North Carolina, in the Guilford County Quaker community, the son of David and Eunice Worth. He attended regional schools and, with no formal college training, studied law in Hillsborough. In 1824 he married Martitia Daniel (1806-1874), niece of his law tutor, the renowned Archibald DeBow Murphey, and established a practice in Asheboro. Worth pursued a variety of businesses in addition to his legal work, including textile mills, cotton growing, stores, and internal improvements such as plank roads. Worth entered state government and represented Randolph County in both the House and Senate; he worked to improve the public school system while in and out of government.
In 1860, with the secession crisis looming, Worth moved to Raleigh and lived at “Sharon,” the eight-acre estate on East Lenoir Street once owned by Josiah Ogden Watson (it would later be stripped by Sherman’s troops). With his Quaker heritage (although with no declared denomination) and, like many fellow Whigs, a slave owner uneasy with slavery, Worth became a reluctant supporter of secession only after Lincoln "disarm[ed] all Union men in the Southern States" by his "folly and simplicity" (his words). In 1862 Worth accepted appointment as State Treasurer in the administration of Zebulon Vance. Like the Governor, Worth, "'sharp as a briar,'" spent much of his time and energy squabbling with the Confederacy over the disposition of North Carolina’s financial and material resources. It was Worth who, as Sherman’s army threatened Raleigh, safeguarded State records by removing them to Company Shops (later Burlington) in Alamance County.
At the end of the War and the beginning of Reconstruction, Worth was chosen Governor as a Conservative in a Provisional Government election in 1865 and again in 1866. During his time in office Governor Worth followed the mandate of the legislature to arrange for artificial limbs for injured CSA veterans, the first southern state to do so. However, he resented the heavy hand of Washington and resisted continuing federal occupation, the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) extending the rights of citizens to blacks, and the Reconstruction Acts, which eventually forced the suspension of his administration. War and post-War politics apparently took their toll, for Jonathan Worth died on September 5, 1869, soon after leaving office. Worth’s Oakwood gravestone reflects pride in his efforts during those tumultuous years of service: "Legislator, Chief Financial Officer and Governor… Faithful in All."
An historic footnote: As Governor it was Jonathan Worth who hosted the visit of President Andrew Johnson to Raleigh in June, 1867, this so the native son could dedicate the gravestone of his father in City Cemetery. However, it was former Governor David Swain, then President of the University of North Carolina, and not Worth, a reluctant orator, who offered a lengthy eulogy to Jacob Johnson. According to historian Elizabeth Reid Murray, President Johnson’s reception by Reconstruction-era Raleigh was warm or chilly depending on which newspaper accounts can be believed.