Goodhue, Edward Payson

GOODHUE, MCGOO, WARWICK, BARTON, BRALEY, MAPLE

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 8/29/2009 at 07:32:48

Goodhue, Edward Payson

(An Autobiography) Edward Payson Goodhue, the third and youngest son of David and Betsey Goodhue, was born in Groton, New Hampshire, March 7, 1839. My father was the oldest son of Joseph Goodhue and he was born in Groton, New Hampshire, February 11, 1803, and his death occurred on February 26, 1886. He was a man of sentiment as well as enterprise, but more philosophical than emotional, a great reader, in fact, was a better scholar than his sons; he was strictly honest and temperate had no use for tobacco, whisky or profanity. He took an active part in the organization of Malaka Township, Jasper County, Iowa, and acted as clerk at the first town meeting, and he was commissioned by A. W. Randall, postmaster-general, on the 24th of April 1868, as the first postmaster at Horn, and he held the office eleven years, and I was commissioned by Postmaster-General D. M. Key in 1879 to take his place and I occupied this position nine years. My father was a descendant of William Goodhue, who came from England in November 1636. He is known to have been a man of high integrity and wisdom and many of his descendants have ranked high in Church and state. They are a quiet, peace-loving people. I have never heard of a divorce in this family, and neither is there any record of any Goodhue having been in the poor house or the penitentiary. They have their share of faults, but so far have held their own counsel and adjusted their differences outside of court.

My mother's people were from Scotland. Her maiden name was Betsey McGoo; she was born in South Berwick, Maine, February 2, 1811, and died July 18, 1906, at the advanced age of ninety-five years, five months and sixteen days. She married Thomas Warwick, of Boston, Massachusetts, November 21, 1826. Four years later he died in Baltimore, Maryland, leaving two young sons, James and Thomas; the former died in Lynn, Massachusetts, in the spring of 1900, and the latter, who was in the marine service during the Civil War, died while thus employed for his country. On February 4, 1833, my parents were married and, besides myself, two other sons were born, George Clinton and David Dexter. She was a noble woman and true mother in every sense of the word, always full of hope and cheer, generous to a fault, sympathetic and energetic. It was her custom back in New Hampshire, to take the wool when sheared, and card, spin and weave enough to cut and make my older brother new suits for winter, and she performed her tasks in this line with more grace than ease, singing more than complaining. Of course these mantles were sooner out-grown than out-worn and naturally fell upon me; a fair deal was the height of my expectancy, but this was more than I had bargained for. It is better to be born lucky than rich.

When I was fourteen years of age my father sold his farm at Croton, New Hampshire, and on April 1, 1854, he took Horace Greeley's advice and came west, arriving a month later, on the first of May, at Marengo, the County Seat of Iowa County, Iowa. Besides these parents, their three sons and "Ring," their dog, Uncle Warren Goodhue and Cousin Frank also came along, and in June we were joined by Uncle Harford and Aunt Harriet Barton, from Reedville, Massachusetts. Uncle Harford and my brother, George C., entered land just east of Hilton Creek, but my father, in company with Uncle Warren, bought a section, including some timber, that lay across the Iowa River. Fifty-five acres of this had been broken and enclosed by a seven-rail stake-and-rider fence, two houses built and two wells dug square and timbered up cob-house fashion. The houses were constructed in a similar manner of logs and shingled with undressed oak splits, three feet in length and from four to six inches in width; these were laid in courses and a log placed across the roof to hold them in place. Like Solomon's temple, the sound of the hammer was never heard in their construction, for the buildings were minus nails. This land was surveyed and divided during the summer of 1855. It was well located, a little southeast of Marengo on a divide that overlooked the town; but the climate was so different from that of New England, it gave all of us the shakes. As soon as I had recovered, my father, mother and brother Clint fell ill with typhoid fever and brother Dick was still in a serious condition. To get a nurse was quite out of the question, for there was no room nor place for one, and, although a boy of sixteen years, I was their only help and watched over them both night and day. Our good Doctor Hendershot gave me much praise for skill and untiring devotion.

A little later in the fall my good Aunt Harriet died, which fact proved so depressing to my parents that they sold out and moved in the early spring of 1856 to Jasper County, making the journey in a lumber-wagon, drawn by £our oxen. Attached to the end of the wagon was a handcart of my making, filled with trinkets and "Yankee notions" from the East. We had sold our livestock and took with us only the oxen, one bay stallion, a small drove of sheep, a coop of chickens and our little black dog to bring up the rear. We frequently stuck in the mud, for the sloughs were not bridged, but they managed to pull through by doubling teams with some mover who chanced to come by in an opportune time, or who were also stuck in the deep mire on the evening of the third day we landed at the North Skunk River. There my I father bought one hundred and ninety-five acres of choice land, of which twenty-five acres had been broken and fenced, and upon which a house had been started and left partly finished. The land was well watered and on it stood a fine grove of timber, which was quite an item, for the country was principally prairie and so far as the early settlers knew, there was no coal in the state, nor railroad to furnish them with building material. Some of the black walnut was cut and sawed at John Cary's mill, and in the fall after it was seasoned, my father purchased for me a set of tools and I was put to work finishing the house. After making the panel doors, there was enough left to make my mother a light-stand, a leaf-table and cupboard. I still retain the latter as a true specimen of what a boy can do with Yankee "gumption" at the age of seventeen years. The country was new and needed to be developed. I had little time for books or sport. I never owned a gun and I never killed a rabbit or songbird. I got enough pleasure out of the use of tools, which I took to most readily. I made barrels, churns, trays, boots, shoes, sleds, spoke-wheels and many other things. While in Dubuque in the winter of 1862, in company with my brother Deck, I offered to enlist with a company of carpenters and join the Union Army in Tennessee, but our services were rejected.

My first vote was cast for President Lincoln, and I have voted for every President since, with the exception of Hayes; however, I am liberal both in my political and religious views, believing more in men and principles than in parties or any special denominations, although I attend Church and contribute something to the support of Churches. I do not believe the story of creation, believing that light, heat, motion and all phases of vegetable and animal life to be spontaneous, springing from the ever changing but indestructible atom. Matter and space are too vast to be cornered and controlled by art, and nature is too full of tragedies to admit of design. It would impeach justice as well as mercy and set at naught the command of Moses, "Thou shalt not kill."

I have always tried to do my full share in the work of developing this locality, having had its interests at heart from the first, and I hope I have been of some small service in this respect. When twenty-one years of age I was elected road boss, and my district run the length of the Township, and after spending the tax bridging the sloughs, I donated twenty-one days grading the bank and reconstructing the first bridge across the North Skunk river. The next year I was elected justice of the peace, and I have held at different times every office in the Township, except constable.

It was while acting on the building committee of the school board that I first met Carlton Braley, who proved to be a genial Vermont Yankee, who owned the stone quarry at Kellogg. He introduced me to his daughter Ellen, who, by the way, is the present Mrs. Goodhue. She had been well educate and had taught several terms of school in our district, and of course, the first one in our new schoolhouse. We were married by the Rev. Addison Lyman and served a sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner, November 25, 1869. On March 13, 1871, Birdie, our only child, now Mrs. F. G. Maple, was born. We had some reverses, but in spite of that, prospered fairly well, so in the summer of 1890, after a lapse of thirty-six years, in company with my wife and daughter, I visited my native land, where every hill and dale are hallowed by the sacred memory of bygone days. We visited relatives in and around Boston and every town of note in Vermont, Mrs. Goodhue's native state. We had the pleasure of attending a liberal camp meeting at Queen City Park, bordering Lake Champlain, and we crossed that historic lake to the place where my grandfather fought under McDonough in the War of 1812. We came home through Canada, by way of Montreal. The following winter we bought the place where we now reside. The following summer we sold our farm in Malaka Township and since then have bought ninety-five acres more. I have given my daughter a deed of twenty, and sold some, but still retain eighty-five acres, the most of which we keep rented. We keep a little livestock for every day use, including a favorite horse. Past and Present of Jasper County Iowa B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1912 Page 554.