General Notes

THE GOODWIN FAMILY

The Goodwin family comes from old "Yankee Stock" on both sides of the family. There were three brothers who came over from England origina1ly. They settled in New England, one went to Massachusetts, one to Maine, and the other to Connecticut. We came from the one who settled in Massachusetts. I don't know just now early they came over or what their trades were, nor do I know just exactly where they settled or even their Christian names but it was well over a hundred and fifty years ago and must have been some where in the seventeenth century.

The earliest Goodwin I do Know about is John Augustus Goodwin my paternal grandfather and your great, great grandfather. He was the dashing Civil War Captain  mentioned in Yankee Doodle". (Proved to be incorrect as this song was written much earlier-Norma Brandsberg) You remember how it goes. "Father and I went own to camp along with Captain Goodwin: there we saw the men and boys as thick as hasty pudding." The officers were allowed to have their wives with them and your great grandfather, my father, was born in camp at the old Thatcher homestead in Dedham. That is where his middle name came from. He was christened William Thatcher Chamberlain Goodwin. The Chamberlain came from General Chamberlain his father's Superior officer.

JOHN AUGUSTUS GOODWIN married Adeline Bacon White a Boston blue blood and direct descendent of Peregrine White the baby which was born on the Mayflower. They lived on historic Beacon Hill and were very wealthy. Her mother died when she was born and her father held her responsible for it and told them to take her away that he never wanted to lay eyes on her again. Matters were made worse as he had wanted a boy, so she was brought up by governesses and servants and hardly knew her father. He married again some time later and she and her step mother never got alone either. She was twelve years old when her father died. He called for her when he was dying told her that he was leaving all he had to "Aunty White" which  was what she called her stepmother, and that she would look after her.

She fell in love with the dashing Civil War Captain and married him much against Aunty White’s wishes as Captain Goodwin was considered beneath her. When Aunty White died she left the family fortune to charities. Your great, great grandmother was a very religious woman and she wouldn't go to court and swear that her father had told her on his death bed that he was leaving everything to Aunty White and that she would take care of her when he died. As she was only twelve at the time and said she couldn’t be sure that was what he meant, so the family fortune went out of our hands. She had a small fortune left her by her mother so it didn't seem to matter very much at the time, either. Her husband went through that however, as she put him up in business twice once In the drug business and once in the dry goods business, his army career had developed recklessness in him and a desire to gamble and drink so she left him with her three boys of which my father was one, and lived very modestly the rest of her life In Salem Massachusetts, where the family has been living after the war was over. She had managed to save enough of her money to tide her over, so she was able to live independently though frugally for the rest of her life.

The family fortune had originally been in dry goods. R.H. Whites' department store in Boston was founded by her grandfather and was inherited by her father which was probably why he wanted a boy so badly when she was born. I never went into that enormous store without going up into the balcony and looking down on the bustling crowds and thinking that it all could have belonged to us except for a trick of fate.

William Thatcher Chamberlain Goodwin married Alice Gertrude Rice. That is where the coat of arms you saw of comes into the picture, An English Lord by the name of Catlin came over to this country and met and fell in love with a beautiful Maine girl. He married her much against his father's wishes and was disinherited. When he came to this country for in the first place or just when, I do not know, nor do I know how they came to be living in Fitchburg, Mass., where your great grandmother was born. All I know is that the brother to whom the inheritance was to go after the father had disinherited his eldest son, died before the father did and he repented on his death bed and reinstated his eldest so that he inherited the estate and title. He never went back to England to claim it, however, end the story used to be passed around that we had a big fortune in England waiting for someone to come over and claim it. Nobody ever had the money to look into it, however, so I don't know what ever happened to it. I expect it was probably absorbed by the crown after so many years had passed and is nonexistent now, As for the coat of arms, I have seen them but it was many years and I am not sure how they look. My mother’s brother had them and he is gone now. I don't even know if Aunt Ethel is alive now or not. They had twins, however, a boy and a girl and I know they are both married and have families but T don't know where they live. The family has spread so far and I have been out of touch with them for so long, over twenty years. I doubt if any of my brothers or sisters could tell you any more. I was the last one to leave home and was more in touch with the cousins and aunts and uncles than most of the others. I do know that it was a shield and had a red background and blue and gold and black designs with some thing crossed underneath the shield. We had a silver butter dish that came down from that side of the family that I remember maybe your father remembers it too as he lived with us when he was little and visited a lot. It was round and stood on legs. It had knobs at each side with which you turned the top gown inside the bottom and had a stags head on the front the antlers of which came out and branched up and the butter knife rested on them. It had the coat of arms and mother used to always say that King George had eaten at the table when the butter dish was used. I don't know which King George she meant and I have often wondered what happened to the butter dish. We had lots of family heirlooms that I remember when I was little that would be valuable antiques now. I think my father must nave pawned them or sold them to dealers as he was always hard up. It cost a lot to raise a family the size of ours. He always earned good pay but the demands were great. I remember when I was twelve years old he earned $35.00 a week when my playmates fathers were only getting eighteen and they said I was telling lies. I always get a kick out or watching "Mama" on television because that is the way we used to live and dress when I was Dagmar's age.

My mother was born in Fitchburg Mass. as I said above but I don't know where her mother and father were born or where in Maine the girl who married the English Lord's son lived. You could write to your greet Aunt where Nana Goodwin lives but I doubt if Nana will remember. She is failing fast and can't remember my name when I go to see her. I have to tell her who I am. I know that she lived in Waltham as a girl and her father died when she was in high school and she had to leave school and go to work In Waltham Watch Factory. My father was  a captain in the U. S. Marines when she met him and was somewhat like his father the civil war captain, he was an expert marksman and I remember a large gilt picture frame with blue velvet and filled with row upon rows of meta1s he had won. Mother used to
cut up his old uniforms down for the boys when they were little. Out immediate family has always lived in Massachusetts mostly around Boston and all but Charles and Walter married Massachusetts folks. Charles married a N.H girl and Walter a Maine girl.


Date of Bacon Family from "Bacon Genealogy, 1915
Published by Murray-Emery Co.,
Kendall Square, Cambridge

Samuel Bacon enlisted in Col. Baldwin's Regiment,
Capt. Moore's Company, Apr, 19, 1775.

Grunbald, a relative of the Norman chief ton, William de Warenne came to Eng1and at the time of the Conquest (1065) and settled near Holt.    His great grandson is said to have taken the name Bacon. The decendants are:
Grunbald
Ranulf
Roger
Rogert
John
John (Time of Edward 1st.)
John
John
John
Edmund
John
Thomas of Heliningham
John
Michael
Michael emigrated to Dedham,

(There was a tree of the Bacons attached which has several of the lineage generations missing and which I already had in the family tree. It matches what I have except for the couple of generations missing, The above document  was written by Alfreda Goodwin and scanned by an OCR program and corrected. This information has notbeen confirmed. We are looking for anyone who has more information about the connections to the White family.-Norma Brandsberg)