Joseph Goodrich
Surnames: Butts, Carpenter, Crandall, Davis, Dickinson, Maxson, McEwan, Pierce, Randall, Rogers, Sprague, Stoors
Regions: Allegany Co., NY; Petersburgh and Stephentown, Rensselaer Co., N.Y; Janesville, Rock Co., WI
From The Portrait and Biographical Album of Rock County, Wis., publ, 1889 - page 443, 444
JOSEPH GOODRICH, the founder of Milton, and of Milton College, was the son of Uriah and Mary GOODRICH, and a lineal descendant of John GOODRICH, who, with his brother William, emigrated from Gloucester, England, and settled at Weathersfield, Conn., in 1644, from whom the GOODRICHES of America have sprung. He was born May 12, 1800, at Goodrich Hollow, near the end of the road, which terminated abruptly at the foot of a mountain, in Hancock, Berkshire Co., Mass. At the age of twelve years he went to live with his maternal uncle, Sylvanus CARPENTER, at Stephentown, N.Y., where he was employed in the avocations of the farm, and received an ordinary common-school education. He developed a vigorous physical constitution, and became an active, industrious, honest, self-reliant, enterprising youth. At the age of sixteen years he experienced a hopeful change of heart, and united with a denomination of Christians known as the Seventh Day Baptists, in the faith of which he remained through life.
On the 30th day of March, 1819, at the age of nineteen years, he started out in the world, on foot and alone, with his wardrobe in a little bundle on his back, for the wilderness of Western New York. He arrived in Alfred, Allegheny County, with his bundle, a new ax, and fifty cents in his pocket. He took a contract for a tract of wild land, on which he built a log cabin, and began felling the trees of the dense forest to let the sun shine in and onto his primitive home. Dec. 13, 1821, he married Nancy MAXSON, daughter of Luke and Lydia MAXSON, of Petersburgh, Rensselaer Co., N.Y., and, as the wild flowers of the woods began to bloom in the spring, they began housekeeping in the little log cabin, without a window or door, save blankets hung over openings in the wall, and the ground as a floor. Thus they lived contented and happy, and struggled on together with privations and poverty. The following year, in 1823, his father came out and united with him in the erection of the first sawmill on the Vandermark Creek, which they got to running the last day of that year. They first sawed the lumber to cover the mill, and next the boards for the wife a cabin floor. In 1824 he erected the frame for a two-story house which he got enclosed, and furnished with a brick oven to bake bread, and fireplaces with iron cranes and hooks to hang the pots and kettles on, the following year, but he did not get it plastered and painted until in 1827. When finished it was the largest and most commodious house in the neighborhood, and religious meetings, school and town meetings were held in it. In 1828 the district built a school-house, on a site furnished by Mr. GOODRICH, and the following winter they hired a stove and held the first term of school.
Mr. GOODRICH built an ashery, in which he bought ashes and manufactured potash. He also kept a small store, and a house of entertainment, a temperance house. He had some military aspirations, and was chosen Major of the State Militia. He also engaged in buying lumber and shingles, which he transported to Hornellsville, and rafted and run them down the Susquehanna River to market. He finally, through losses from floods, met with reverses in this business, which well nigh ruined him, and led him to seek a home in the wild prairies of the West, out of sight of a pine board or tree. He induced a neighbor, Mr. H. B. CRANDALL, to come with him on a tour of observation, and he hired a young man, Mr. James PIERCE, now of Milton, to come and remain on the claim which he might secure, while he should return for his family. They left Alfred, N.Y., the 26th day of June, 1838, and came to Buffalo with a team, where they waited two or three days to secure passage on a steamboat up around the lakes. They were in Cleveland, Ohio, July the 4th , and landed in Milwaukee July the 11th. They came out to the far-famed Rock River Valley on foot, with packs on their backs, Mr. GOODRICH also carrying a spade to test the soil, as he said he had lived on the clay hard-pan long enough. He was quite fleshy, the weather was hot, water was scarce and long distances apart, and stopping places far between, and difficult to get, which made the journey wearisome for them to endure. On the 16th day of July, 1838, they came out upon the wild but beautiful little prairie, subsequently called Prairie Du Lac, the Prairie of the Lakes, where the quiet little village of Milton now stands. They were charmed with the dark, rich, alluvial soil; with the tall, green, luxuriant grass; with the myriads of fragrant, many-colored flowers; with the sparkling, little silver surfaced lakes; and with the cool, refreshing shades of the orchard-like oaks; and they determined to pitch their tents there. Mr. GOODRICH bought claims on sections 26 and 27, and Mr. CRANDALL on section 28. Mr. CRANDALL returned for his family, while Mr. GOODRICH remained to erect a little house for a home on his claim. The pioneers had all built in the edge of the timber or groves, in fact they did not believe the center of the large prairies could ever be made into comfortable farms and homes, to them it seemed like going out into a sea or lake. They secured timber first, then water, and then prairie, if all could be got in one farm. But Mr. GOODRICH thought all the rich prairies would be settled and made into farms. He also judged that the main leading highways, connecting large towns could be made straight and direct, without regard to sectional lines. He drew an air line on the map from Chicago to Madison, and also from Janesville to Ft. Atkinson (each of the latter then having one house), and found they crossed each other on the center of this little prairie, and on his claim, and he therefore there located his house, the first one in Milton Village, which he built in August, 1838. It was 16x20, with frame of hewed oak, and it was shingled and covered with oak. It had oak floors, and was lined with unburnt prairie mud brick, of which the chimney was made. It had one small, 7x9, glass window to each floor, and a strong made, three ply, battened oak, Indian proof door. It was the first frame house in the town, nor was there one in Janesville then. He painted it red, and it is red still, and clad in the same old oak it is standing on its original site. In it he kept a store, in 1838, selling $500 dollars worth of goods that year. He bought the claim for the farm now owned by the Master of the State Grange, for $125, and paid for it in goods. When the highways were laid, in 1839-40, they crossed, as he calculated, in front of his house. One other thing he deemed necessary, a well of water, and this he attempted to dig, in down Eastern style. But he soon learned that the ground sub-soil would not stand like the clay of the East, and the art of curbing a well to them was unknown. They tried to curb it with boards put in lengthwise, held in place with inside oak frames; but as each length had to be made smaller to go inside the other, they soon got it tapered in too small for them to work. They heard of a man named Daniel BUTTS, who had learned to frame curbing so as to put in piece by piece. Mr. BUTTS was sent for, oak trees were cut and split into thin, flat staves, and these were framed much as is now done, and with them they succeeded in reaching water at a depth of fifty feet. They drew out all the ground and sand with a tin pail and bed cord, hand over hand, Mr. PIERCE skinning his hands. Mr. GOODRICH did not deem a well finished until it was stoned up, as in the east, and getting a yoke of oxen they drew small hard-heads from the bluff, and letting them down with their tin pail and rope, they thus stoned it up, taking out the long board curbing, as timber was scarce, and supposing they had got a good permanent well.
September 16th Mr. GOODRICH started East for his family and goods, leaving PIERCE in charge of his house and store. Mr. RANDALL arrived Nov. 16, 1838, with his wife and eight children, and lived with PIERCE while he put up a log house on his claim. During this time the water in the well began to get low, and PIERCE went down into it, clinging to the stones with fingers and toes, when he found the water had settled, and the well could not be deepened on account of the stone. He therefore scooped out the center as well as he could, and then began to come up as he went down; but, when about half way up he was amazed to find the stones had bulged in so as to barely allow him to squeeze through, and some of them had loosened so he could not pass until Mr. CRANDALL let down the tin pail and rope and drew them out, one by one, thus leaving an opening where the sand and gravel was likely to come in and bury him alive. But carefully and cat-like he crawled up from stone to stone, and when out found CRANDALL watching him spell-bound, and as white as a ghost. Two wells have caved in with old age, and a third one has been long used near this spot and place, yet Mr. PIERCE is still living, hale, hearty and well, and the same old burr-oak posts which held the first buckets to draw water from this first well, are still standing firmly in the ground, where they have withstood the elements, for over fifty years.
Jan. 30, 1839, Mr. GOODRICH started for Wisconsin with his family, consisting of his wife, son and daughter, three hired men and one woman, and four companions from Alfred, N.Y., with four teams and covered wagons mounted on sleighs, by the overland route. The snow was four feet deep, and on the first day's journey Mr. GOODRICH's spring wagon, with himself and family, tipped over, breaking Mrs. GOODRICH's collar bone in such a manner, that the surgeon, after repeated efforts, could not set it, and bandage it so as to hold it in place. Thus she was obliged to ride with it loose in a sling. Thus they passed through the deep snow drifts of winter and the mud of spring; through the Great Maumee Swamp, where there were thirty-one taverns in just thirty miles; breaking through the ice in the Calumet River, where one horse was drowned; passing through a vast sea of mud, in the center of which a little city called Chicago stood; fording ice-gorged rivers and creeks, where the bridges were washed away, in one of which Mrs. MAXSON fell out and was submerged; Mr. GOODRICH carrying a kicking calf on a teetering pole over Turtle Creek, while a bellowing cow swam the stream; and at last arriving at the little red house out on the wild prairie, March 4, 1839, after a journey of thirty-four days. And there they lived in this little building, with a family of thirteen, and kept travelers besides. In it also Mr. GOODRICH still kept the first store, there being none other in Janesville at that time. There too they held their first religious meetings, and in it he also kept the first post-office, in 1839.
When Mr. GOODRICH erected this pioneer building, in 1838, out on the center of a wild little prairie, which the Government still owned, he conceived the idea of building up a little village here at the crossing of his imaginary roads. He proposed to Messrs. STORRS and McEWEN, who claimed the land south of him, to join him in the enterprise, each to appropriate a part of the land for a large public square, and all to unite in getting mechanics to locate here, by giving them lots to build upon, fronting his imaginary square. But they deemed the scheme too visionary, and Mr. GOODRICH subsequently bought McEWEN's claim to the south half of the southeast quarter of section 27, for $60, and upon this quarter section, after the Government land sale, he and PIERCE platted a public square of twenty-three acres, and around which he began to sell and give away lots. His first deed was to Orrin SPRAGUE, a blacksmith, dated April 27, 1840, for half an acre, consideration $1. He gave the use of land for a church, which was organized in 1840, largely through his influence, and which he helped liberally to sustain. He also gave the beautiful site for the Milton cemetery, which is enlarged, and is now one of the finest in the State. He gave the use of land for a public school, which was first opened in his house, and taught by Evans DICKINSON, in the winter of 1840-41. He built the original Milton Academy, in 1844, and maintained it for the first ten years at his personal expense. And from it, through his munificence, Milton college was founded, and built on the beautiful grounds which he gave. He secured the location through Milton of the first railroad in the State, to which he gave the right-of-way through his farm, and of which he was made a Director, and an engine was named "Joseph Goodrich" in memory of him. He built and kept the first hotel in the town, in 1839, in connection with which he built the first frame barn, and before Janesville had one. In fact he loaned the County Commissioners the money to buy the land from the Government, where the Rock County court-house now stands. He attracted many men of integrity and influence to Milton, who helped him in building up a strong moral and temperance sentiment in the town, which long outlived them and is fostered here still. He was a man of great hospitality, and his home was always a safe refuge for the poor and oppressed.
Our subject received many marks of respect and esteem, having been elected to the Legislature by the unanimous vote of his district, in 1855. In stature he was large, and with broad shoulders, brown hair, and gray eyes, and he moved with a firm, elastic step. He was quick to conceive and prompt to execute, and acted with a wisdom that generally led to success. He had a generous heart, and was of a genial and social disposition., which always attracted and held him many warmhearted friends, by whom he is always remembered by some apt saying or remark.
In politics Mr. GOODRICH was a Whig, and subsequently a Republican, and he was always a strong anti-slavery man, with whom a fugitive slave was sure to find a friend and a safe retreat. In 1857 he lost his most estimable wife, which was a great affliction, not only to him and his family, but to the church, the school, and the whole community. In 1859 he was again married, to Mrs. Susan H. ROGERS, widow of the Rev. L. T. ROGERS, at Westerly, R.I. She was a lady of culture and intelligence, and of rare Christian worth. She was to him a most worthy and exemplary wife.
Our subject died in October, 1867, at the age of sixty-seven years, and his remains, with those of his wife, are resting in the beautiful grounds which they gave for Milton Cemetery, where a sorrowing son erected an enduring monument to their memory. But the fruits of their life's work have made them a more endearing monument in the hearts of the people where they lived. He left two children: Ezra, who remained on the old homestead at Milton; and a daughter, Mrs. Jane G. DAVIS, the most estimable wife of the Hon. Jeremiah DAVIS, of Rockford, Ill. The fruits of his labors survive him in the marked morality of Milton, which he founded; in the business enterprises which he inaugurated and built up; in the most beautiful public square, which he bequeathed to the people; and in Milton College, which he founded and fostered through life.