Norris, William Brown

Life Span
to
Dickinson Connection
Class of 1824
    Full name
    William Brown Norris
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Free State
    Education
    Dickinson (Carlisle College)
    Occupation
    Attorney or Judge
    Businessman
    Other
    Other Occupation
    Surveyor
    Relation to Slavery
    White non-slaveholder
    Military
    Union Army

    William Brown Norris (Dickinson Chronicles)

    Scholarship
    William Norris was born on May 20, 1803 in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania.  He received his bachelor of arts degree from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1824 and began to study law in Bellefonte.  In 1826 he was admitted to the Centre County Bar and began to practice law.  However, a loss of his voice forced Norris to abandon that profession; he then moved to Lewistown and became engaged in the iron industry.  After several years in this trade, Norris was a surveyor from 1848 to 1852 and was a surveyor for the port of Philadelphia.

    A  jack-of-all-trades, Norris then entered the insurance business, in which capacity he served until being appointed paymaster of the United States Army.  While serving in the army, Norris died in Memphis, Tennessee on March 22, 1864, two months before his 61st birthday.
    John Osborne and James W. Gerencser, eds., “William Brown Norris,” Dickinson Chronicles, http://chronicles.dickinson.edu/encyclo/n/ed_norrisW.htm.
    How to Cite This Page: "Norris, William Brown," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/6321.