Zimri Scates Wallingford, the son of Samuel and Sallie (Wooster) Wallingford, was born in Milton, in the county of Strafford, October 7, 1816.
Nicholas Wallington, who came, when a boy, in the ship "Confidence," of London, to Boston in the year 1638, settled in Newbury, Mass., where he married, August 30, 1654, Sarah, daughter of Henry and Bridget Travis, who was born in 1636. He was captured on a sea-voyage, and never returned; and his estate was settled in 1684. With his children (of whom he had eight), the surname became Wallingford.
John Wallingford, son of the emigrant Nicholas, born in 1659, married Mary, daughter of Judge John and Mary Tuttle, of Dover, N. H.; but he lived in that part of Rowley, Mass., now known as Bradford. He had seven children; one of these was Hon. Thomas Wallingford, of that part of ancient Dover afterwards Somersworth, and now known as Rollinsford, who was one of the wealthiest and most eminent men of the province, associate justice of the supreme court from 1748 until his death, which took place at Portsmouth, August 4, 1771. The eldest son of John Wallingford, and grandson of the emigrant, was John Wallingford, born December 14, 1688, settled in Rochester, N. H., and became an extensive land-owner. His will, dated October 7, 1761, was proved January 17, 1762. His son, Peter Wallingford, who inherited the homestead and other land in Rochester (then including Milton), made his will April 18, 1771, which was proved August 24, 1773. His son, David Wallingford, settled upon the lands in Milton, then a wilderness. He died in 1815, being the father of Samuel Wallingford, who was father of Zimri S.
Z. S. Wallingford
Upon his mother's side, Mr. Wallingford is descended from Rev. William Worcester, the first minister of the church in Salisbury, Mass., and ancestor of the eminent New England family of that name or its equivalent, Wooster. Lydia Wooster, great-aunt of Mr. Wallingford, was the wife of Gen. John Sullivan of Durham, major-general in the army of the Revolution, and the first governor of the state of New Hampshire; she was mother of Hon. George Sullivan of Exeter, who was attorney-general of this state for thirty years.
In 1825 the father of Mr. Wallingford died, leaving his widow with four children, of which this son, then nine years of age, was the eldest. At the age of twelve he commenced learning the trade of a country blacksmith. When he had wrought for his master as his boyish strength would allow for two years, he determined not to be content with being simply a blacksmith, and entered the machine-shop of the Great Falls Manufacturing Company at Great Falls, N. H., and served a full apprenticeship at machine-building there, in Maryland, Virginia, and in the city of Philadelphia.
August 27, 1840, Mr. Wallingford married Alta L. G. Hilliard, daughter of Rev. Joseph Hilliard, pastor of the Congregational church in Berwick, Maine, from 1796 to 1827. Their children have been (1) John O. Wallingford, who was sergeant-major, and became lieutenant in the Fifteenth N. H. volunteers, in the war of the rebellion; was severely wounded in the assault on Port Hudson; and was afterwards captain in the Eighteenth N. H., an officer of great merit, whose death at his home in Dover, March 23, 1872, was the result of disease contracted in his war service. (2) Mary C., now wife of Sidney A., Phillips Esq., counselor-at-law in Framingham, Mass.; (3) Julia, residing with her parents.
In 1844, Mr. Wallingford entered the employ of the Cocheco Manufacturing Company, Dover, N. H., as master machine-builder, and remained in that capacity until 1849. During that period, Mr. Wallingford and a partner, by contract, constructed new machinery, cards, looms, dressing-frames, and nearly everything necessary for the re-equipment of the mills. The then new and large mill at Salmon Falls was also supplied with the new machinery necessary, in the same manner.