Walter Scoon Witherell was born on August 19, 1840, in Ossian, New York, to Seymour Witherell and Euphemia Scoon. His father was a farmer who owned $300 of personal property in 1860. He grew up and attended school in Witherell, and by the early 1860s, he was working as a farmer. He enlisted in the Union army on August 29, 1862, and he mustered in as a private in Company B of the 136^th New York Infantry on September 25. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 10½ inches tall, with brown hair and gray eyes. The regiment took part in the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Battle of Gettysburg, the Atlanta Campaign, the March to the Sea, and the Carolinas Campaign. He mustered out in Washington, D.C., on June 13, 1865.

 

Witherell returned to Ossian after the war, and he married Emma Cutler on October 4, 1866. They had five children, only two of whom survived: Walter, born around 1867; and Evaline, born around 1880.  Witherell worked in a sawmill in Ossian, and by 1870, they owned $500 of real estate and $100 of personal property. He applied for a federal pension in October 1879 and eventually secured one. By 1880, his mother and his brother Isaac were both living in his household. He moved to Grove, New York, sometime in the late 1800s, and his wife Emma died there around 1906. By 1910, he was living with his brother John in Grove, and they employed at least three white servants. A decade later, he was living in his daughter Evaline’s household in Ossian. He died around 1929.

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