Walter Forward was born in Hartford County, Connecticut, on January 24, 1786. After attending school in Connecticut, he and his family moved to Pennsylvania, where he read law and was admitted to the bar in 1806. From 1822 until 1825, Forward served in the U.S. House of Representatives and served as a a delegate to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention in 1837. When William Henry Harrison became President of the United States, Forward became first comptroller of the treasury under Secretary of the Treasury Thomas Ewing. When Ewing resigned his post, President John Tyler made Forward secretary of the treasury. From 1849 until 1851, Forward would be the U.S. charge d' affairs to Denmark. Upon his return to the United States in 1851, he became the presiding judge of a Pennsylvania District Court, a position he held until his death on November 21, 1852.