William Henry, the first sheriff of Beaver County, was born in County Down, Ireland in 1777. He was the oldest son of William and Jane Patton Henry, who emigrated to America in 1783 and settled near Havre de Grace, MD. In 1794, the family moved to Peter's Creek, Washington Co., PA and were there during the Whiskey Isurrection, but took no part in it. In 1795, William and his brother Thomas, then fourteen years old, settled in what was later Beaver County and now Wayne Township, Lawrence County, making a small clearing and building a cabin.
William and Thomas were both carpenters. The built their first hewed log house between the Conoquenessing Creek and New Brighton. In 1798, William and Thomas moved to Beaver.
In 1800, William took the first census of Beaver County, and in 1803 he was appointed sheriff by Governor Thomas McKean to serve three years.
William Henry died at Wooster, OH, shortly after the end of the Civil War.
Source: History of Beaver County, 1904