Goodrich Family Papers

ELIZUR GOODRICH, 1761-1849 (Y. 1779), second son and child of the Rev. Dr. Elizur Goodrich (Yale 1752), of Durham, Connecticut, was born in Durham on March 24, 1761.

On the invasion of New Haven, in July of his Senior year, he was one of the party of students who went out to repel the British, and was subsequently wounded and taken prisoner but escaped.

At graduation the Berkeley Scholarship was awarded to him, and he also delivered the Latin Valedictory oration to his class.

He was elected to a tutorship in College in September, 1781, and began duty at the beginning of the ensuing term. He held office for two years, and then resigned to enter on the practice of law in New Haven, having pursued professional studies under the tuition of his uncle, Hon. Charles Chauncey.

He married on September 1, 1785 Anne (or Nancy) Willard, only daughter of Daniel Allen, a master builder of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, whose widow Esther had recently married Deacon David Austin, of New Haven.

In 1789 he was elected a member of the Common Council of the city, and was re-elected for the four following years; he then served as Alderman until 1800, and then again for three years was one of the Council. In 1803 he was elected Mayor, and continued in that office until his resignation in 1822, after which he was twice re-elected Alderman.

In May, 1795, he was chosen a representative in the General Assembly, and filled that station in thirteen sessions to 1802, during which time he served as Clerk of the House in six sessions, and as Speaker in two. In 1803 he was promoted to a seat in the Governor's Council, which he held until the change in the State Constitution in 1818.

In 1799 he was elected a member of Congress, and soon made himself known in the House as a man of sound judgment and strong reasoning powers; but early in 1801 he was led to resign on his appointment by President Adams as Collector of the Port of New Haven, in succession to Deacon Austin, his wife's step-father. He was, however, removed from office by President Jefferson soon after his inauguration.

From 1802 he was the judge of the Probate district of New Haven, and on the death of Simeon Bristol (Yale 1760), in October, 1805, he was appointed chief judge of the County Court; but he was retired from both these offices as the result of the political change in 1818.

In 1801 he was appointed Professor of Law in Yale College, and as such he delivered courses of lectures on the law of nature and of nations, but resigned the office in 1810, as interfering too much with other public duties.

As one of the Senior Senators of the State, he was ex officio a member of the Yale Corporation from 1809 to 1818, and on his retirement from this office he was elected Secretary of the Board, and so continued until 1846. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. in 1830.

He died in New Haven on November 1, 1849, in his 89th year. His wife died in New Haven, after a week's illness, from lung fever, on November 17, 1818, aged 51 years. Their children were two sons and one daughter. The elder son was graduated at Williams College in 1806. The younger son was graduated at Yale in 1810, and became an eminent Professor here. The daughter married the Hon. Henry L. Ellsworth (Yale 1810).

Professor Kingsley at the time of Mr. Goodrich's death wrote of him:-

He was distinguished for the clearness & strength of his judgment, the ease and accuracy with which he transacted business, and the kindness and affability which he uniformly manifested in all the relations of life. His reading was extensive and minute, and what is not very common in public men, he kept up his acquaintance with the ancient classics to the last; being accustomed to read the writings of Cicero, Livy, Sallust, Virgil and Horace down to the 89th year of his age, with all the ease and interest of his early days.

His cordial manner, extensive information, and genial humor, combined with unusual conversational powers, made his presence in society particularly agreeable.

It is worthy of mention that from the time of his entering College in 1775, he was uninterruptedly connected with the Institution, either as a student, resident graduate, tutor, assistant to the Treasurer, Professor, member of the Corporation, or Secretary of that Board, for the space of seventy-one years. From: F. B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, Vol. IV, pp. 114-116.

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NOAH COE, 1786-1871 (Y. 1808)

NOAH COE, the eldest child of Charles Coe, a farmer, of Durham, Connecticut, and grandson of Abel and Prudence (Rossiter) Coe, of Durham, was born in Durham on May 24, 1786. His mother was Hannah, daughter of James and Mary (Curtis) Bates, of Durham.

He studied theology after graduation, for a part of the years 1809-1810 in the Andover Seminary, and was licensed to preach by the New Haven East Association of Ministers on June 12, 1810.

His first pastoral charge was in Chester, Orange County, New York, where he was ordained and installed by the Presbytery of Hudson on July 3, 1811. He was dismissed from Chester in 1813, and in June, 1814, was installed over the Presbyterian Church of New Hart-ford, Oneida County, where he was highly respected and beloved, and where he remained until February, 1835.

He then returned to New Haven, Connecticut, and for about a year supplied the vacant pulpit in Woodbridge.

In 1836 he began to supply the Second Congregational Church in Greenwich, which called him to a settlement on March 30, 1837. He was accordingly installed as pastor on May 23, and had on the whole a successful ministry.

Dissatisfaction, however, arose in the church, his critics claiming that his labors were inadequate to the needs of the parish, and that his usefulness was gone.

The Church and Society in April, 1845, requested him to join with them in calling the Fairfield West Consociation. He declined to be a party to their action, but the Consociation met on May 20, and voted his dismission; they stated in their result that the charge of inadequate service was wholly unfounded, but that his usefulness and comfort had been brought to an end by the hasty and censurable proceedings of a portion of his people.

About two hundred persons had been added to the Church during his ministry.

He was not again a settled pastor, but for ten or fifteen years labored almost continually in other forms of ministerial service. From 1848 to 1854 he was engaged as a city missionary in New York and Brooklyn.

He then removed to New Haven, where he resided until his death. From November, 1854, to February, 1856, he was the stated supply of the Congregational Church in Northfield parish, in Litchfield; and for the following year supplied the Congregational Church at New Preston Hill, in Washington. A prayer which he made at a Fast-Day service in Woodbury, in January, 1861, with a scathing reference to President Buchanan, is still remembered.

He died suddenly, at his daughter's house in New Haven, on May 9, 1871, at the age of 85.

He married, on October 25, 1810, Elizabeth, second daughter of the Rev. Samuel Goodrich (Yale 1783), of Berlin, Connecticut, who died in New Haven on March 10, 1864, in her 77th year. Their children were two daughters and three sons.

The second son was graduated here in 1837, and the third son (who became a minister) in 1838; but both died before their parents. The younger daughter married the Rev. Chauncey Goodrich (Yale 1837); the elder daughter died in infancy.

He was, with the Rev. Moses Gillett (Yale 1804), one of the editors of the following:

A Narrative of the Revival of Religion, in the County of Oneida, particularly in the bounds of the Presbytery of Oneida, in the year, 1826. Utica, 1826. 8°, pp. 88. [ Y. C. ]

From: F. B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, Vol. VI, pp. 183-184.

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CHAUNCEY ALLEN GOODRICH (1790-1860)

Chauncey Allen Goodrich was born in 1790 in New Haven, Connecticut. His grandfather was Elizur Goodrich (1734-1797), a clergyman in Durham, Connecticut and a member of the Yale Corporation, and his father, Elizur Goodrich (1761-1849), was a member of Congress, a judge, professor of law at Yale College, and a member of the Yale Corporation. Chauncey Allen Goodrich was a clergyman, author of texts on Latin and Greek, lexicographer, and professor of rhetoric at Yale College, and of the pastoral charge in Yale's Theological Department. In 1816 Goodrich married Julia Frances Webster, the daughter of Noah Webster, and in 1829 he edited an abridgement of Webster's dictionary. He published a revision of the original dictionary in 1847. Goodrich died in New Haven in 1860.

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CHAUNCEY GOODRICH, 1817-1868 (Y. 1837)

CHAUNCEY GOODRICH, the eldest son of Prof. Chauncey A. Goodrich (Y. C. 1810), died in New Haven, March 27, [illegible] aged 50 years. His mother was Julia, daughter of Webster, and he was born in Middletown, Conn., July 20, 1817.

He spent the first year after his graduation as a private tutor in Virginia, and the two following years in the Theological Department of Yale College. His first settlement, from Aug 30 1843, until Nov. 1, 1847, was over the Trinitarian Congregational church in Malden, Mass. He was again settled, Aug. 22 1849, as pastor of the Congregational church in Watertown, Conn., which charge he relinquished Nov. 1, 1856, on account of an affection of the throat. From this time he was a resident of New Haven, engaged chiefly in literary labors, especially in connection with the revised edition of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. He also prepared and read before the New Haven Colony Historical Society, of which he was Secretary, several valuable papers.

He was married, Aug. 22, 1843, to Miss Elizabeth E. Coe, daughter of Rev. Noah Coe (Y. C. 1808), at Greenwich, Conn. His son and only surviving child, Edward E. Goodrich, graduated at Yale College in 1866.

From: Yale Obituary Record, No. 27, p. 280.

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WILLIAM HENRY GOODRICH, 1823-1874 (Y. 1843)

WILLIAM HENRY GOODRICH, youngest son of Prof. Chauncey A. Goodrich (Y. C. 1810), was born in New Haven, Conn., January 19, 1823. His mother was Julia, daughter of Noah Webster. (Y. C. 1778).

After leaving college, he spent a year in New Haven, as a resident graduate, in the study of law and general literature. He then began the study of theology in the Divinity School, and finished the course in 1847. He was, immediately appointed to a tutorship in this college; but receiving a severe injury while in the discharge of his duty as an officer, in December of the same year, he was obliged to relinquish all mental occupation, and consequently resigned his position, and in April sailed for Europe. He returned with improved health in January, 1849, and was ordained over the First Congregational Church in Bristol, Conn., March 13, 1850. He remained in Bristol until invited to the Presbyterian Church in Binghampton, N. Y., where he was installed December 6, 1854. From this church he was dismissed, July 4, 1858, and on the 12th of the next month was installed associate pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Cleveland, O. From April, 1861, until August, 1872, he was the sole pastor, and at the latter date, an associate having been installed, Dr. Goodrich left home for a visit to Europe, with the hope of renewing his impaired strength. After a long succession of deferred hopes of improvement, and a rapid decline at the last, he died in Lausanne, Switzerland, July 11, 1874.

He was married, April 23, 1850, to Miss Mary Pritchard of New Haven. She survives him, with five children.

A memorial volume has been published by his church.

The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by Western Reserve College in 1864.

From: Yale Obituary Record, No. 34, pp. 186-187.

For charts outlining the genealogical relations of the Coe, Goodrich, and Webster families, please consult theGenealogical Charts.