William H. Worth

The third member of the Worth family of Randolph County to serve as Treasurer, William Henry Worth was a devout Quaker. Having taken no role in the Civil War, Worth was not among the white males who failed to qualify for public office during Reconstruction. He served as Assessor of Internal Revenue for the Third North Carolina District from 1866 to 1870 and then settled on a farm near Kinston in Lenoir County. After he made a name for himself as business agent for Lenoir County, he was appointed State business agent in 1889, serving in that position until December 31, 1894.

During the Fusion campaign of 1894, Worth was nominated as the Populist Party's candidate for Treasurer to oppose Colonel Samuel McDowell Tate for the remaining two years of the unexpired term of Donald Bain who had died in office. After defeating Tate, Worth was reelected for a full term in 1896. Though Worth himself was a person of integrity, the embezzlement of $16,000 by a veteran clerk was discovered by Worth's successor. Worth, at considerable personal sacrifice, covered the loss so that neither the State nor the bondsman suffered any loss. Historian Samuel Ashe was highly impressed with Worth's diligence to make the matter right. "By this act of honor and self-sacrifice neither the State nor any of the Treasurer's bondsman were losers, though the result of years of toil was thereby swept from the possession of Mr. Worth to make good the shortage of another," wrote Ashe. 1

1 Samuel Ashe, Stephen B. Weeks, Charles L. Van Noppen, eds., Biographical History of North Carolina from Colonial Times to the Present, Vol. II (Greensboro: Charles L. Van Noppen Publisher, 1905-1917), 480.

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