"This very incomplete sketch will give some idea of the varied practice which had occupied Mr Worthen during a long and most active professional life there being scarcely a branch of civil or mechanical engineering wherein his professional fitness has not been conspicuous in a marked degree. It has not been his lot to project or carry to completion great works of internal improvement such as challenge the admiration of the unthinking public but in a very unobtrusive way he had been continually rendering that essential service toward the furthering of enterprise without which the best conceived projects would prove abortive. To a remarkable power of rapid generalization seemingly incompatible with painstaking accuracy he united an almost intuitive perception of the requisite expedients of detail and design. His quickness in technical analysis, combined with the before mentioned qualities, has rendered possible the successful completion of many important works with which, owing to a forgetfulness of self his name is scarcely associated A retentive memory to sift and treasure the facts in science and art which extended study, had opened up to him the tact of judicious selection and application originality and boldness at times bordering on audacity and a positiveness that silenced all opposition have been the characteristic features of his long practice. Whatever Mr Worthen may have owed to study or experience in the arts of construction his acknowledged genius, using the word in its strictest sense, stamped him as an engineer ''nascitur non fit''."〔
"Mr Worthen possessed an overflowing vein of wit and humor which served to temper the asperities not unusual in professional debates, this coupled with a kindliness of disposition which could see nothing in others to speak of but what was commendable led to his friends being numbered only by his acquaintance. His social relations were of the happiest kind and his memory will be long prized by all who knew him."〔