Biographical Sketch

James Jones Walworth, the first to introduce steam heating to America, was born in Canaan, N.H. on 18 Nov. 1808, the son of George and Philura (Jones) Walworth. He was educated in Canaan schools and at academies in Thetford, Vt. and Salisbury, N.H. After teaching there for three years, he moved to Boston in 1829 in search of work. After a brief term of employment in a greenhouse, he found work in the Boston hardware business of Alexander H. Twombly & Co. He then became a partner in another hardware firm, Scudder, Park & Co., and was later superintendent of the Canton Hardware Co.

Walworth's marriage in 1837 to Elizabeth Chickering Nason led to further business opportunities. During a visit to England, his brother-in-law Joseph Nason became familiar with a system of heating using hot water and high pressure. The Perkins system, as it was known, was sold by J. Perkins & Co. of London, and in it Nason saw an opportunity to introduce steam heating to America. The two formed the firm of Walworth & Nason in New York in 1841. The new enterprise succeeded at several locations in New York, but it was its Boston plant, established on Devonshire St. in 1842, which saw its greatest success. Beginning with the first steam heating unit in the United States installed at the Middlesex Co. in Lowell, Mass., they installed their system in numerous mills and other large buildings throughout New England over the next few decades. The firm was also the first to introduce the combination of heating and ventilation through their work in the Boston Customs House in 1846. The firm designed and manufactured parts, including the development of the globe and angle valves and, in 1845, began using smaller pipes to accomplish the task. In 1853, Walworth was called in to redo the heating system in the White House for newly elected president Franklin Pierce.

Financial difficulties in the early 1850s forced the separation of the New York and Boston houses. Nason returned to New York while Walworth, with his brother C. Clark Walworth and Marshall S. Scudder, remained in Boston with the newly formed J. J. Walworth & Co. The firm flourished as one of the chief sources of supply for fittings, valves, and tools. It was reorganized in 1872 as the Walworth Manufacturing Co. J. J. Walworth served as its president until his retirement from active duties in 1890.

In 1855, the unsuccessful branch house of Walworth and Hubbard was established in Chicago, with the Chicago fire bringing about its eventual demise. A more successful enterprise was the Malleable Iron Fittings Co., incorporated at Branford, Conn. in 1864 by Walworth, Nason, and Henry R. Worthington. Walworth remained its president until his death.

On the more personal side, with the exception of time in Brookline and a move to Boston in his later years, Walworth lived most of his life in parts of Newton, Mass. He was a representative to the state legislature from that town in 1870 and 1871. He was an anti-slavery sympathizer, a free-soiler, and in favor of temperance reform. He was a life-long member of area Congregational churches, a founder of the Lasell Seminary in Auburndale (Newton), and president of the educational society in that city.

Elizabeth Walworth died in 1886, and in 1888, James married again, this time to Lydia Sawyer, the widow of a former business associate. His only son, Arthur Clarence Walworth, was born in 1844 and became president of the Walworth Construction and Supply Co., which in 1887 took over the construction business of the Walworth Manufacturing Company. James J. Walworth died on 28 Apr. 1896 at the age of 87.