Catherine Gougar Goodman
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Catherine Gougar Goodman
South of the Alfred Immell home near the Chillicothe-Columbus pike, west of Kingston, Ohio, has been erected a fine monument to mark the last resting place of Catherine Gougar Goodman, the first white woman settler in Ross County, of whom there is any positive record.
The monument was erected by her descendants headed by Ex-Mayor Oliver P. Goodman of Kingston. Many of the family live in Green Township and Chillicothe. The spot where the monument stands had been cleared by Catherine Goodman herself and it was her request that she be buried there. It is now visited by many tourists, standing as it does on historic ground; -- ground where she herself was held captive by the Shawanese Indians. The inscription on the monument reads,
In memory of Catherine Gougar, pioneer wife and mother, born in New Jersey, 1732, captured by the Indians 1744 in Berks County, Pennsylvania, and for five years held a captive at and near this place. Sold to French-Canadian Traders, she served in Canada for two years. Finally gaining her freedom, she returned to her former home only to find her parents gone and herself homeless. She lived with friends until 1756 when she married George Goodman, who died in 1795. With her son, John, came to Ohio in 1798 and by a strange fortune, settled on this spot where she had been held a captive while with the Indians. Died in 1801 and lies here in the place chosen by herself and cleared by her own hands. This monument erected by her great great grandchildren in 1915.
Her parents emigrated to Northumberland County, PA, when she was a little girl and later moved to Berks County, being among the early Pioneer families in that part of the county. In 1744 when she was 12 years old, she and a little brother were captured by Indians. Her father [and brothers] were killed in the fight, but her mother [and a sister] had gone to a spring some distance away earlier to get water and were not discovered by the Indians.
The Indians took Catherine and her younger brother westward and on the third day the little boy was unable to keep up with the march. Catherine saw two Indians lagging behind with him. After a while the two again joined the march. The sister saw a little fair haired scalp hanging to their trophy belt and recognized it as being that of her little brother. She knew then that he had been killed. Catherine was held captive for five years but was not unkindly treated. As stated above, she was traded to French-Canadians, who took her to Canada where she remained two years.
Finally returning to Pennsylvania, she found her mother [and sister] dead and the cabin home abandoned. She remained with friends there until her marriage with George Goodman in 1756. Six children were born to them, four sons and two daughters. In 1798, Mrs Goodman, then 66 years old, came to Ross County, Ohio with her son John, who took up land in what is now Green Township.
His mother recognized the places where she had lived when a captive of the Shawanese Indians. She had brought with her a left handed sickle made for her in Berks County in 1757. On this sickle, is cut the name of R. W. Shaw, possibly the name fo the man who made it. (The sickle is in the possession of Alice Goodman of Kingston, Ohio.) With this implement, the aging pioneeer helped to clear a spot which she recalled as one of the scenes of her Indian captivity. Here she lived and died, and at her request, she was buried on the spot she had cleared. A monument has been erected by her descendants, who still live on the original tract, to mark the last resting place of a pioneer mother whose strange experience has seldom been equaled.
Ohio Cues, PERSI: OHCU, Volume 23, Issue 1, October, 1973.
The story of Catherine Gouger Goodman
Indian Captive and Ohio FrontierswomanOn Orr Road (old U.S. Route #23) about nine miles north of Chillicothe there is a monument about 200 ft. east of the highway. This monument marks the final resting place of one of the first white women to live in this section of our state. It is the grave of Catherine Gouger Goodman. Catherine made two trips to Ohio. The first time she came she was a captive of the Shawnee Indians. Fifty-four years later she again came to live here. This time she came with her son's family and, strangely enough, settled in the very same place where she had lived as an Indian captive fifty-four years before.
Catherine Gouger was born in Northumberland County in New Jersey in 1732. When Catherine was a small girl her family moved to Berks County, Pennsylvania. Here she lived with her parents, her sister, and three brothers.
One day in 1744, during the King George War, her father and one brother went to work in the fields and her mother and sister went to a spring to obtain water. Catherine was in the cabin home with her two younger brothers. A band of Shawnee Indians appeared and Catherine sent the older brother, who was with her, to warn her father and brother in the field of the Indians. It was too late! The Shawnees killed her father and two brothers and took twelve-year old Catherine and her four-year old brother as captives. Her mother and sister escaped unnoticed by the Indians.
The Shawnees started westward through the wilderness with the two white captives. The four-year old boy could not keep up with the party and after three days was killed by his captors. The party traveled many miles until they arrived at the Shawnee Village in a beautiful river valley. Here the Indians treated their young white captive kindly. They referred to her as the "white squaw". She was given a tepee of her own and played with the Indian children. The squaws taught her how to make pottery, to prepare skins for clothing, and some of the other duties of Indian women. She lived with the Indians for five years, but she never lost her desire to return to her home in Pennsylvania and to her own people.
When Catherine was seventeen years old some French-Canadian traders came to the Indian village to trade with the Shawnees. Catherine managed to tell the traders of her captivity and of her longing to return to her old home. The traders bargained with the Indians for the girl and took her back with them to Canada. Here she worked for two years to repay the French-Canadians for her ransom.
One day some traders from Pennsylvania came to Canada to trade some grain and Catherine went back with them to her old home in Pennsylvania. Her homecoming was a sad one. She learned now, for the first time, that her father and brothers were killed by the same Indians that captured her, and that in the meantime the remainder of her family had died. She went to live with friends.
In 1756 she married George Goodman and they became the parents of six children. As a mother, Catherine often told her children about her life as an Indian captive. She even taught her children some of the things the Indian squaws had taught her. She helped her husband on the farm and worked especially hard when her husband and oldest son, John, fought in the American Army during the Revolutionary War.
In 1795 George Goodman died and Catherine went to live with her son, John. This was the time when the fever to move to the Ohio Country was so great, and her son, John, decided to move west. In the autumn of 1797 he came, with his helper, Honnes, to the west and secured 200 acres of Congress Lands in what became Greene Township in Ross County, Ohio. The two men built a cabin, cleared some land, and early in the spring planted their first crops. John left Honnes in charge of the new farm and he returned to Berks County in Pennsylvania to bring his family to their new home.
The sixty-six year old Catherine came with them. While enroute she took care of her two young grandchildren, the younger child, Daniel, was only two years old at the time of the trip. The family traveled overland until they reached the Ohio River, floated down the river until they arrived at Portsmouth, and then traveled northward overland on horseback toward their new home. As they approached this new home, the area became familiar to Catherine because this was the same spot where she lived for five years as a captive of the Shawnee Indians more than 50 years before!
Catherine lead her grandchildren to the creek where she had played with the Indian children. With her own hands she cleared a spot, near her son's house, where her tepee had stood while she lived with the Indians. She requested that when she died that she be buried on the spot.
Catherine Gouger Goodman died on July 15, 1801 and was buried in the place that she requested. In 1915 her descendents erected a monument over her grave.
Catherine's son, John, chose his land wisely for his farm was located in the rich agricultural Scioto River Valley. It is interesting to note that Catherine's descendents owned and lived on the farm for 173 years. Across the road from Catherine's grave her son, John, built a large home. It served for a time as the Wayside Inn and here were entertained many notable travelers on the Chillicothe and Circleville Pike.
Historical Review of Berks County, PERSI: PA Historical Review, Volume 5, Issue 3, April 1940