Goforth, William (1731-1807)

Continental army officer.

New York shoemaker and radical leader. Active in Committee of Mechanics and New York Society of Dissenters. Captain, First Battalion, New York (June 1775). Fought at Trois Rivières. Resigned after being promoted to major in Dubois’s New York regiment under officers whom he considered his juniors (June- July 1776). Elected to New York Assembly on a conservative slate (1784) and subsequently on a Committee of Mechanics slate (1785).

Married Catherine Meeks (1760).