William Lyon Norton was born on November 29, 1841, in Connecticut to William and Sophia Norton. His father was a machinist who owned $2,300 of personal property in 1860. The family lived in Marlborough, Connecticut, until the 1850s, when they moved to Manchester, Connecticut. Norton attended school in Manchester until at least 1860. He enlisted in the Union army on September 9, 1861, and mustered in as a corporal in Company B of the 10^th Connecticut Infantry on September 30. The regiment spent the next two years stationed along the Carolina coast, and they took part in the Battle of Roanoke Island, the Battle of New Bern, and the Battle of Fort Wagner. Norton was wounded in the Second Battle of Deep Bottom on August 14, 1864, and he mustered out on October 7, 1864.

 

Norton returned to Connecticut after the war, and he married Jennie Annie in East Hartford on April 12, 1866. They had at least two children together: William, born around 1866; and Sumner, born around 1876. The family moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, in the late 1860s, and Norton worked in a machine shop there. By 1870, they owned $1,500 of real estate and $300 of personal property. He applied for a federal pension in September 1881 and eventually secured one. Jennie died on February 22, 1885, and Norton married Catherine Eliza Burr around 1888. By 1900, they were living in Plymouth, Connecticut, and Norton was working as a tool maker and machinist. He retired sometime before 1917. A military census taken during World War I describes him as 5 feet, 5½ inches tall and 159 pounds. He had gone deaf by then, and he was suffering from chronic bronchitis.  He died in Connecticut on June 30, 1921.

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