Riley Co., KS AHGP-Portrait and Biographical Album of Washington, Clay and Riley Counties-Isaac Goodnow
Portrait and Biographical Album of Washington, Clay and Riley Counties Chapman Brothers, Chicago, 1890
lSAAC T. GOODNOW. In December, 1854, Eli Thayer, whose name and memory are venerated by every true Kansan, delivered a lecture in Providence, R. I., in which, in earnest and eloquent language, he depicted the struggle then going on in the recently-opened Territory of Kansas, between the friends of freedom and the slave-holding power of the South. He told how the latter, having secured the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, were determined to make Kansas a slave State, and to that end were forcing over the Missouri borders a horde of ruffians who by force, fraud and even murder were overawing the actual settlers of this fair domain, and making it perilous for any but the friends and champions of slavery to settle or attempt to establish homes for themselves and their families in the new Territory.
Among his auditors was a gentleman, at that time Professor of Natural Sciences in the Providence Seminary at East Greenwich, R. I. He was of New England ancestry, the son of Christian parents, a member of a Christian Church and an anti-slavery man in principle. In addition to all those he possessed a high courage, deep convictions and a cultured and scholarly mind. The lecturer and the lecture served to mark a crisis in his career. With him the old life was at an end and a newer and larger life about to begin. His face was to be turned in a new direction and his efforts put forth in a new field.
After the lecture this man, with Rev. Dr. Joseph Denison and others, met the lecturer and they conversed together until after midnight. The decision was for emigration, and Prof. Isaac T. Goodnow, for it was he of whom we write, immediately resigned his professorship and set about organizing a colony to leave for Kansas the following spring. Rhode Island thus lost an able and experienced educator, and Kansas gained a settler and citizen, who during the more than thirty-four years he has resided within her borders, has to his credit an active, useful and honorable career, both in public and private life.
This man, who for so long a time has been identified with the history of Kansas, both as a Territory and as a State, deserves more space for the telling of the story of his life than we have at command. We can therefore give only a few of the leading facts connected with his personal history, and they are as follows: Isaac T. Goodnow, the third son and fourth child of William and Sybil (Arms) Goodnow was born in Whitingham, Windham Co., Vt., Jan. 17, 1814. He is of old New England stock and of English descent, on both his father's and mother's side. William Goodnow, his father, was born in Petersham, Mass., and was a descendant of one of three brothers who came to Massachusetts Colony at an early day. When a young man he went to Vermont, and for many years was a successful merchant in Whitingboro. There, in 1806, he married Miss Sybil Arms, a school teacher and daughter of John Arms, one of the early settlers of Brattleboro, Vt. John Arms was likewise one of the Green Mountain boys who assisted in the capture of Burgoyne, at Saratoga, and officiated as captain in the Vermont militia of minutemen.
The father having lost his property by endorsing a note, Isaac T., at the age of fourteen years, assisted his mother in the support of the family. He was four years behind the counter as a merchant's clerk in Colerain, Mass., and in Marlboro, Vt., and spent his leisure hours and evenings in reading and study, determining to secure for himself the benefits of an academic education. He had in the meantime united with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was firmly grounded in its Christian precepts. Thus prepared for sincere and earnest work as a student, he left home and walked fifty miles to Wilbraham, near Springfield. Mass.. and entered the Academy in 1834. He remained in this institution until 1848, first as a student and then as an instructor in the primary and English departments, and in due time became Professor of Natural Sciences. This latter position he held for ten years. While connected with this institution the Wesleyan University at Middletown, Conn., conferred upon him the degree of A. M.
In 1848 Mr. Goodnow was called to the Chair of Natural Sciences in Providence Seminary, at East Greenwich. R. I., which he filled until the beginning of 1855, when he resigned, having determined upon coming to Kansas and assisting in making it a free State. He was a successful educator besides being an enthusiastic student, and took pleasure in imparting knowledge to those committed to his care. As a disciplimrian he was firm yet gentle, nnd won the confidence and respect of his pupils. During the score of years he sat at the teacher's desk he gave instruction to more than 5000 students, each of whom witnessed his worth as a man and his ability as a tutor.
On the 28th of August, 1838, shortly after completing his course in Wilbraham Academy, and while an instructor in that institution, Mr. Goodnow was married to Miss Ellen D.. daughter of Major David and Lucy (Avery) Denison. and sister of Rev. Joseph Denison, whose name is closely and prominently identified with the early history of Kansas. Mrs. Goodnow was born in Colerain, Mass., and came to her new position fully prepared to prove by her affection and sympathy a helpmate and companion to her young husband. For fifty-one years she has walked by his side, fulfilling in love and affection every wifely duty, and making her life beautiful by daily deeds of kindness and charity. She had grown old gracefully and time, who spares neither beauty nor strength, has gently laid his touch upon her. Hers has been a pure, prayerful life, a life of giving, of doing and of living according to the teachings of Him, to whom since her early youth she has looked for comfort, consolation, guidance and blessings.
Having no children, this couple after having passed the fifty-first milestone of their wedded career are living a quiet, retired life in their pleasant home about two miles northwest of Manhattan. They have been members of the Methodist Church for over fifty years.
For three months after having resigned his Professorship in Providence Seminary, Mr. Goodnow devoted himself to the work of preparing for his departure to Kansas. He wrote for Zion Herald, at Boston. Mass.. and for the Providence and other New England papers, urging the lovers of freedom to join the colony, then getting ready under the auspices of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, for their long journey to the far West.
Finally a colony of 200 were gotten together, and the day of starting fixed for March 13, 1855. On the 6th of the month Mr. Goodnow set out in order to select a town site with good farm claims around it, so as to be ready at their coming and thus save the unpleasantness of waiting. On the way he fell in with Rev. C. H. Lovejoy of New Hampshire, also bound Kansas ward, having been inspired to join the free State forces by reading one of Mr. Goodnow's letters in a Boston paper. He was accompanied by his wife and family. They reached Kansas City, Mo., Sunday, March 18. Here Mr. Goodnow first met Gen. S. C. Pomeroy. who had just returned from an exploring trip up the Smoky Hill, 100 miles above Ft. Riley, a trip which he made with a horse and buggy, entirely alone.
On Tuesday a committee of seven started from Kansas City as the advance guard of the immigrants. This committee consisted of Isaac T.
Goodnow, Luke P. Lincoln, Charles H. Lovejoy, N. R. Wright, C. N. Wilson, A. Browning and Joseph Wintermute. On Saturday, March 24, just as the sun was setting, they ascended Bluemont from the north, and from its summit looked down upon what is now the site of the beautiful and prosperous little city of Manhattan.
This committee soon learned that there were prior occupants and claimants to the land they sought. In the fall of 1854 Col. George S. Park, of Parkville, Mo., had located a town site on the Kansas River, in the southwestern part of the present site, and named it Poliska. He had built a log cabin upon it for a blacksmith shop and a big Virginian, one of the Juniata outfit, had jumped his claim by breaking into the cabin and nominally living there. At the northeast part of the town site upon the Big Blue, that same fall S. D. Houston, of Illinois; Judge S. W. Johnson, of Ohio; Judge J. M. Russell, of Iowa; Dr. H. A. Wilcox, of Rhode Island and E. M. Thurston, of Maine, five college graduates from five different States, met and located the town of Canton. A dugout at the foot of Bluermont marked their only improvement.
After due deliberation Mr. Goodnow pitched his tent upon Parkstown site, with the design of neutralizing any legal claim the Virginian might have. He and Mr. Wintermute slept there the first night. Martin, the Virginian soon made an attempt. backed by a montley crowd armed with rifles, shot guns, bowie knives and pistols, all ready for use, to drive Mr. Goodnow from the claim. The latter, however, aided by some of his friends, succeeded in persuading them to refer the disputed title to a committee of five. This committee unanimously reported that he should have until next day to vacate. He replied that as they had the physical power to remove him he would remove himself but under protest.
"Your protest" said their spokesman, " I suppose has reference to the settlement of the case before some legal tribunal." "Certainly," replied
Mr. Goodnow. and they saw that he had the advantage. Martin, after blustering around a few days, made a very reasonable proposition to sell, which was accepted, and within a week or so Mr. Goodnow carried him to the Missouri River on his way to old Virginia. The two camped out together, slept side by side and parted good friends. This was one of the rare instances in those days when the title to a disputed claim was settled without bloodshed.
Soon afterward the members of the Boston Colony arrived and about the last of May a company of about seventy-five settlers, headed by John Pipher and Andrew J. Meade came up in the steamer "Hartford" with the intention of founding a town where Junction City now stands. They were offered half the town site if they would stop and help build up the town at the month of the Blue, in conjunction with Mr. Goodnow and his fellow-colonists. They accepted and the name of the town was changed from Boston to Manhattan, because of a clause in the constitution of the Cincinnati & Kansas Land Company, which required that the town where they settled should be called Manhattan. "Shake" houses, eight in number, were built from clapboard split from oak timber in different parts of the town site to protect the settlers from junipers.
Mr. Goodnow entered a claim of 160 acres of land on Wildcat Creek, two miles above Manhattan, and which is now occupied by Mr. J. T. Swingle, who purchased it about six years ago of Mr. Goodnow. The latter lived on this place long enough to preempt it. In 1860 he bought the ten acres two miles northwest of Manhattan, where his present residence is situated. During the first two years of his sojourn in Kansas he was engaged in farming, and as one of the Directors of the Town Site Company, found his time occupied with the matters pertaining to the interests, welfare and progress of the infant city. In 1857 he returned East and spent the summer in the New England States, in the meantime raising $4000 for the building of the first Methodist Church edifice west of Lawrence.
Next, Mr. Goodnow in connection with Joseph Denison and Washington Marlatt, conceived the idea of establishing in Manhattan a great educational institution and making it the nucleus of learning in the new Territory. He accordingly spent the years 1858-59-60 in the East, raising money to build Bluemont College, which was to be conducted under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He secured $15,000 in cash, a library of 2000 volumes, and a valuable set of philosophical and chemical apparatus. He likewise secured for the college site 100 acres of land, almost west and within a quarter of a mile of his residence. In due time a substantial stone building was erected. In these labors he was assisted by the Rev. Joseph Denison and Rev. Washington Marlatt and under the last-mentioned gentleman as principal, assisted by Miss Julia A. Bailey, of Connecticut, to whom he was shortly afterward married, the college was opened for students in the winter of 1859-60.
Mr. Goodnow naturally became one of the Trustees of the college, and was elected its first President in 1862. He officiated as teacher a term and a half, and was then elected a Representative to the State Legislature, with the express object of securing a location of the proposed State University in Manhattan, in consideration of giving to the State all the property that the Bluemont College Company had accumulated. He secured the passage of the bill but failed to secure the university by reason of Gov. Robinson's vetoe.
In the fall of 1862 Mr. Goodnow was elected State Superintendent of public instruction and re-elected in 1864. This office was one for which he was eminently fitted, and he discharged its duties in an able and most acceptable manner. He traveled the first year over 4000 miles, and delivered lectures in twenty-nine counties, besides visiting schools of every grade, consulting with officers and teachers, and familiarizing the people with their public school system. On the 2nd of July, 1862, the National Congress passed an act for endowing State Agricultural Colleges.
Under this act Kansas received 90,000 acres of land. Having failed to get the State University, the people of Manhattan united in an effort to secure the Agricultural College. Mr. Goodnow entered heart and soul into the work, securing the
object in view, and as consideration Bluemont College and 100 acres of land were donated to the State. As superintendent of public instruction he was ex-officio, a regent of this institution and also of the State University at Lawrence, together with the State Normal School at Emporia, and he participitated in the organization of each. The Agricultural College began its existence in July, 1863, and was the first State educational institution in Kansas.
In 1867 Mr. Goodnow was selected agent for the disposal of the 90.000 acres of agricultural college lands. He held this position until 1873, and sold enough lands to create an income of $18,000 annually. In 1869 he was appointed Land Comissioner of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company, and during the seven years in which he held lliis position he sold land amounting in value to over $1,500,000. Since 1876 he has held no public position but has lived quietly in the retirement of his home, giving his attention to his own private business and travels a great deal. He has been a liberal and cheerful giver of his means to religious, educational and charitable purposes. In early life he adopted a rule of devoting one-tenth of his annual income in aid of worthy charities, and to this rule he has ever adhered, being seconded and assisted by his estimable wife. In the autumn of his years he can look back upon a well-spent life, with the feeling that whatever may have been his errors in judgment, his aim and purpose has been to perform every duty as it presented itself and besides earning and enjoying the respect and esteem of his fellowmen, to gain that most desirable of all earthly rewards�the verdict of an approving conscience.
Mr. Goodnow is a member of the Masonic fraternity, the Patrons of Husbandly and the Sons of Temperance. After the death of his father his mother was married to Solomon Whitney, of Marlboro, Vt., by whom she had two children�Solomon. Jr. and Ann Ross. The son now resides near Manhattan, Kan., and is represented elsewhere in this work. The daughter is the wife of Stephen French, of Orange. Mass. Mrs. Whitney in 1871 joined her son in Kansas, and died at his home July 12, 1873, aged eighty-five years.
In early life Mr. Goodnow was a Whig, then an anti-slavery man, and latter became a Republican. He was a delegate to the first Free State Convention at Lawrence, Aug. 16, 1855, and was an active and earnest worker in the Free State cause. In 1840, himself and his brother, William K., manifested their anti-slavery principles by voting for James G. Birney for President. During the many years of his residence in the vicinity of Manhattan, Mr. Goodnow has identified himself with the moral, the Christian, the patriotic and progressive element of the Sunflower State.
ln July, 1889, at its last commencement, Baker University, near Lawrence, conferred upon him the degree of Ph. D., an honor entirely unsolicited and unexpected on his part. He has been not only a student but a writer, and is the fortunate possessor of a fine private library to which he is constantly making additions. On his reading-table are to be found the leading newspapers and magazines of the day. He has lived an active, honorable and useful life of seventy-six years. Though of slender build, he has by temperate habits, and a right use of his mental and physical powers, preserved unimpaired his strength of body and mind, and is full of energy, and still capable of enduring much physical and intellectual labor. He gives his personal attention to his private business.