He attended the Wyoming Seminary in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, but left the school after the outbreak of the American Civil War.
[1] After hearing of the attack on Fort Sumter, he returned to New York to enlist for service in the Union Army.
[1] After graduating, he moved west to Green Lake County, Wisconsin, and started a medical practice in the village of Dartford.
[1] He was a trusted family physician and surgeon in the Green Bay area for 30 years, and was a member of the Fox River and Brown County medical societies.
Their two daughters died young, but their son, William Jr., went on to graduate from the Northwestern University Medical School and practiced medicine in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for the rest of his life.