He is known as one of two co-founders of The Philadelphia Inquirer, the third-longest continually operating daily newspaper in the United States of America.

His parents were Lieutenant Lipscomb Norvell, an officer of the Virginia Line in the American Revolutionary War, and Mary Hendrick.

Lipscomb Norvell was taken prisoner by the Revolutionary War when they captured Charleston, South Carolina, in 1781, and later was an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati.

Lipscomb descended from Captain Hugh Norvell (1666–1719), one of the original trustees of Williamsburg, Virginia in the 17th century and a Vestryman at Bruton Parish Church.

In 1807, Norvell wrote to U.S. President Thomas Jefferson: It would be a great favor, too, to have your opinion of the manner in which a newspaper, to be most extensively beneficial, should be conducted, as I expect to become the publisher of one for a few years.

It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.

I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors.

Norvell's adventures during the War of 1812 were chronicled in the Some Account of the Life of Spencer Houghton Cone, A Baptist Preacher in America.

They were so exhausted that they fell asleep even before they had finished their meager meal, sleeping on the bag of clothes spread out on the floor.

While the men slept, Amelia, Cone's wife, awoke and went out into the garden—in the distance she could see the burning White House and Capitol building.

For nearly the next two years, he maintained Clay's support at home, which earned Norvell apparently no great pecuniary rewards.

Early that year, he was again applying for clerkships in Washington, and soon moved east to Philadelphia, where he became editor of an anti-Federalist newspaper.

Angus Keith, a Great Lakes boat captain, and the younger daughter Emily Virginia Norvell married Henry Nelson Walker, a newspaper owner, lawyer, and attorney general of Michigan.