William S. Norton was the second husband of Richard White's great grandmother Sarah Spear.  He was probably kin to M. H. Norton, from South Carolina, whose family appeared on the 1860 Census for Thomas County, Georgia, in household number 894, while my great grandmother Sarah Spear and her husband James M. Carter appeared in household number 892, that of the Widow Mary McCrone, for whom James M. Carter was listed as "manager".  Household 863 was that of William Powell Carter, one of James. M. Carter's brothers.  M. H. Norton had a son named William Norton, but in the 1860 census for Thomas County his age was reported as 16, which would have made his birth date around 1844.  W. S. Norton, according to his grave stone at Old Boston Cemetery at the Presbyterian Church in Boston, Thomas County, Georgia, was born on 9 February 1836 (there is no date of death on the stone).  There are no other William Nortons known to have been in the Thomas County area at the time, but the major discrepancy in reported birth dates leaves open whether this William was M. H. Norton's son.

William S. Norton was enrolled  in the Thomas County Volunteers, Company H of the 29th Georgia Infantry Regiment, on 1 October 1861.  Company H was subsequently redesignated as Company I in a reorganization that occurred on 7 May 1862.  The Company roll dated 31 December 1861 shows him "at home, sick" and there is no further record.  Apparently at some point in time William S. Norton was disability discharged similarly to Amon H. Thompson, who served briefly in Company K (redesignated Company C) of the 29th Georgia Infantry Regiment and later married Nancy Spear, Sarah's older sister.

William S. Norton must have married Sarah about 1866 and died about 1870 or 1871.  No extant record has been found of either event, but oral history Herman E. White was to the effect that Sarah never knew what became of her first husband, James C. Carter... that to her knowledge he just never came home from the war.  The birth date of Sarah's first child by William S. Norton was circa 1867.  The last child born to them was born circa 1870.

NOTE:  The Thomas County Tomb Index referencing his burial at Old Boston Cemetery at the Presbyterian Church in Boston, Thomas County, indicates that "W. S. Norton" served in Company I of the 29th Georgia.