He continued to reside at the city of Raleigh until his death, which occurred September 5th, 1869, in the 67th year of his age.
In the space allotted to the distinguished sons of the Old North State in this volume, it is impossible to do justice to so long, eventful and well-spent a life.
Gov. Worth was a good lawyer, a faithful legislator, an expert financial officer, and an able governor. In nothing that he ever did was there any attempt at display, and he made no speeches "for Buncombe." Indeed, he was thoroughly practical, and most remarkable for the accuracy of his judgment and the soundness of his conclusions; which, after all, is the nearest approach to the perfection of human wisdom. The State may have produced more brilliant sons, but none of sounder judgment or who, from their stand-point, labored with an eye more single to her best interests. It was his fortune to administer the affairs of the State amid a period of delicacy, danger and excitement. But such were the purity of his motives and the fidelity of his conduct that during his "administration as Governor not a single instance occurred in the State when a Sheriff had to summon either civil or military aid to execute the process of the law." Beginning life without fortune, but industrious, practical, prudent, honest, receiving from his native State the noblest reward she had to bestow, his success and example may well be pointed to the young men of the State for encouragement and imitation.
The characteristics which marked his public conduct, governed him in his private relations. To these may be added intense affection for his family and friends, to whom he was kind and indulgent, and for whom he could not do enough. He married (1824) Martita Daniel, a niece of Judge Murphey, whom he left a widow with six children, one son and five daughters. He lived to see all of his children married. One of his daughters married Maj. William H. Bagley, Clerk of the Supreme Court. and his only son, David G. Worth, is now the most prominent commission merchant in the city of Wilmington.
Col. Andrew Balfour was a resident of this County. He was a native of Scotland, and came to this country in 1772, and settled, first at New Port, R. I Among those whose lives were sacrificed to the cause of freedom, says Caruthers, in his admirable little work;*
* Revolutionary Incidents,
&c., by Rev. E. W. Caruthers, Phila., 1854, p. 297.
and whose
patriotic services deserve to be remembered, was Andrew Balfour. The first
notice we have of him, in North Carolina, is a letter to his wife, dated
Salisbury, July, 1774; that he had bought a plantation in Randolph county, at
the headwaters of the Uharee. When the Revolutionary war came, he determined to
join the defenders of his adopted Country, and was appointed Colonel of the
County, and became active and prominent. He was elected a member of the
Legislature (the first after Randolph County was created), in 1780. In the fall
of that year he and Jacob Shepherd, who was a prominent Whig, were captured by a
party of Tories from the Peedee, but were rescued by Captain Childs, from
Montgomery. One of the victims, Shepherd, left the neighborhood, but Balfour
remained only, to meet an untimely fate. A narrative of Judge Murphey furnished
for the Uni. Mag., by Gov. Swaim gives an account of this most bloody affair:
"In one of his predatory excursions, he (Fanning) went on Sunday, the 9th of
March, 1782, to the house of Andrew Balfour, which he had plundered three years
before. One of Balfour's neighbors (Cole), rode at full-speed to
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