Born in New London, Connecticut in 1807 to William Woodworth, he received limited formal schooling,[1] and moved to Hyde Park, New York in 1834.
[1] He was Judge of Dutchess County in 1838 and reappointed in 1843, and was an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1842 to the Twenty-eighth Congress, losing to Richard D. Davis.
Woodworth held interests in Cuba and formed the stock company of the Hudson River State Co. at Clinton, New York.
[4][5][6] In 1852, Woodworth speculated on real estate north of New York City near the Hudson River Railroad Line with his business partners Henry L. Atherton, Samuel Babcock, and Charles Foster.
His partners and himself laid out plans for a community of villas and country lanes and named their development Riverdale.