Nourse, William

Born: 1812-10-23 Washington, D.C.

Died: 1892-03-02 Washington, D.C.

Flourished: Washington, D.C.

With the assistance of his father, Nourse began his professional career as a pharmacist. He continued in the pharmacy business until 1838, when he took a position as a clerk in the U.S. General Land Office in Washington, DC. In September 1840, he married Isabella L. Bond, with whom he had six children. He left the General Land Office in 1851 and traveled to California. Upon his return, he opened a banking firm. The bank failed in 1857, and he subsequently became a senior partner in a whole mercantile business. In 1864, he became a clerk in the Subsistence Department of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps, a position he held until his death. He was a member of the "New School" of the Presbyterian Church.

Gravestone, Congressional Cemetery, Washington, DC; The Biennial Register of all Officers and Agents in the Service of the United States (Washington, DC: Blair & Rives, 1838), 24; Register of all Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1849 (Washington, DC: Gideon, 1849), 129; Register of all Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1851 (Washington, DC: Gideon, 1851), 136; Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1865 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1866), 185; Maria Catharine Nourse Lyle, comp., James Nourse and his Descendants (Lexington, KY: Transylvania, 1897), 117.