The founding father of the Wurts family in America, Johannes Conrad Wirz (1706-1763), was born in Switzerland and emigrated to America in 1734. He settled in Pennsylvania and upon his death, was a minister of a German Reformed Church at York. The first of his four sons, John (1744-1793), settled in Flanders, Morris County, New Jersey. John married Sarah Grandin in 1773 and they had nine children, eight of whom survived to adulthood. He was an iron manufacturer and owned several forges.

Charles Stewart Wurts (1790-1859), a son of John and Sarah Grandin Wurts, went into the dry goods business with his brother William around 1820. The former partnership of Maurice and William Wurts had gone into liquidation. By 1824 the business was known as Wurts & Co. Several years later William Musgrave joined the company as a partner and the name of the business was changed to Wurts, Musgrave and Wurts. Charles Stewart Wurts was also involved with the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company and held stock in the company, but was not as active to the same extent as were his brothers Maurice, William, and John. Charles Stewart Wurts married Mary Vanuxem, daughter of James and Rebecca Clark Vanuxem, in 1826.

George Wurts (1777-1835), another son of John and Sarah Grandin Wurts, and his wife Abigail Petit Wurts had thirteen children, of which nine reached adulthood. One of their sons, William Wurts (1809-1858) had attended Amherst College and began a career as an engineer but then studied law under his brother John Jacob. He became an attorney and practiced law in Carbondale and then in Wilkes-Barre from 1836 through 1847. When he returned to Carbondale in 1847 he practiced law, operated a lumber business, and was involved in buying and selling real estate. He was an attorney for the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company. William Wurts and his wife Lucretia Jeanette Lathrop Wurts had eight children, of which six reached adulthood.