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- EZRA GOODRICH was the only son of Joseph and Nancy
- GOODRICH, and was born at Alfred, Allegheny Co., N.Y., Feb.
24, 1826. He resided with his parents, on the Vandermark, until
13 years of age attending the district school after about 6 years
of age. In the fall of 1838, his parents removed temporarily
to Alfred Center, where he attended the Alfred Academy one term.
January 30, 1838, he started, with his parents, for Wisconsin,
coming the overland route, and arriving in Milton March 4, 1839.
July 4, 1839, he attended, with his father, the first Fourth
of July celebration held in Janesville, the only buildings visible
being the double log house of Mr. JANES and the frame work-up
for a hotel where the MYERS House stands.
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- Frank KIMBALL delivered the oration. Gov. DODGE was present,
and was presented with a
- revolver, and Charles STEVENS furnished dinner in the grove.
The many cares in making a new home on the wild prairie, and
the multiplicity of business engaged in by Joseph GOODRICH, in
keeping hotel, store, post office, building up a village, etc.,
gave very active and constant employment to Ezra; much of the
time on the road, and away from home; and afforded him but limited
and irregular opportunities of attending school. It gave him
instead ample experience in all the practical events of a pioneer
life. He painted the sign, however, "Milton Academy"
on the front of the first Academy Building in Milton (if
not in the county), erected by his father in 1844. He made the
sign as instructed, covering the front battlement to the roof.
The letters were at least four feet long. It was a big
sign to a little institution, which laid the foundation
to Milton College, however. He attended school in this little
academy to a limited extent during the winter months, and assisted
his father on the farm and in his business during the summer
season, until he arrived at the years of his majority. In the
winter of 1847-48, he attended the preparatory department of
Beloit College, and the fall and winter of 1848-49 at the Alfred
Academy, in Allegheny Co., N.Y., the place of his nativity. Here
he formed the acquaintance of his wife. In the summer of 1849
(during the prevalence of the cholera), in company with his father,
he visited New York and purchased stock of merchandise, dry-goods,
groceries, crockery and hardware, and commenced business in Milton,
Wis., in company with two cousins, Wm. H. GOODRICH and John S.
CARR, as the firm of GOODRICH, CARR & Co. They opened up
a fine, prosperous and constantly increasing trade, were well
pleased with the business and worked harmoniously together.
- In the summer of 1850, the cholera broke out in Milton, taking
first a Norwegian, a harvest hand
- of his father's; next Maxson GREEN, an uncle; then Lydia
GREEN, an aunt; and Elijah E. GOODRICH, a cousin - his partner's
brother, in as many consecutive days, and soon after John S.
CARR, his cousin and partner. Another cousin, George R. MAXSON,
joined in the business, under the firm name of GOODRICH, MAXSON
& Co., which continued until the fall of 1851, when Wm. H.
GOODRICH died of consumption. GOODRICH & MAXSON continued
in business until January 1, 1856, when MAXSON went out and Jeremiah
DAVIS came in, continuing business as the firm of GOODRICH &
DAVIS until the fall of 1858, when DAVIS withdrew and entered
farming in Illinois. Ezra GOODRICH continued business until the
great rebellion in 1861, when all the banks in Illinois (about
one hundred and fifty in number) and three-fourths of the banks
in Wisconsin went to the wall; when upon going to bed with a
thousand dollars current funds in his safe he would wake up in
the morning and find three-fourths of it worthless, and be obliged
to pay fourteen per cent. premium on the balance for checks on
New York, with no certainty of their holding good to reach the
city. He went out of business and went to farming, which he has
since followed. October 14, 1852, he married Elizabeth L. ENSIGN,
daughter of Deacon Charles and Selina T. ENSIGN, of Kirkwood,
Boone Co., N.Y. She came with him to his Wisconsin home, and
proved the most estimable and exemplary wife, and a woman of
great moral worth. They had four children, two sons and two daughters
- Joseph C., born June 24, 1854; Wm. H., born Feb. 15, 1856;
Mary E., born March 23, 1859; and Anna S., born June 18, 1861.
- In religious belief, Ezra GOODRICH is a Seventh-Day Baptist,
and was one of the charter
- members of the Milton Seventh-Day Baptist Church, to the
support of which he contributed largely, and for the benefit
of which he has given, by trust deed, the perpetual income from
his inheritance from his mother's estate, after Milton College
ceases to exist (a time, it is to be feared, not far distant).
- In politics, he has always been a stanch Republican, but
his faith in the entire purity of any
- particular church or political party is most materially modified.
He is a man of both independent thoughts and actions, and of
strong personal convictions; an act that he believes to be the
right and a duty to be done, he will do, though frowning devils
block the way; and an act that conscience clearly tells him is
a wrong, he would as openly and as fearlessly condemn. He has
been an active participator in Milton events and filled many
local offices of responsibility and trust in town, in church,
in college, in schools and societies, etc. He raised the original
stock of Milton Academy in 1854 and furnished the money (by loans
to the subscribers) that secured the control of this institution
to his denomination - the Seventh-Day Baptists; in 1868, the
institution having become a college (its founder, Joseph GOODRICH,
having died), and the college President having involved himself
and certain trustees in the erection of an addition to the college,
their notes for $1,500 of the amount being held by the bank in
Janesville, and near protest, and without a dollar in the treasury
or that could be raised to pay them (a special effort of the
college Trustees having been made and utterly failed), Ezra GOODRICH
finally determined to make a personal effort to set the institution
entirely out of debt and to secure for it an endowment fund.
Having his house completed, but not yet occupied, he adopted
the novel expedient of getting up a big party (but keeping the
purpose carefully concealed); he accordingly gave out invitations
to about 300 persons to assemble at his residence for a grand
"house-warming." He provided tables for seating about
150 guests at a time and the dishes and fixtures for setting
the table for 300 persons; he procured 450 chairs at the factory,
provided for the illumination of the house, the checking and
care of baggage, etc., and for as good a supper as he knew how
to give them, with soul-stirring music to follow, thus expending
about $300; the guests came, the programme was successfully carried
out; all went merry as a marriage bell, and, at the auspicious
moment, when the inner man was full and the outer man smiling
and happy, and their attention attracted to the music, Mr. GOODRICH
stepped forward and announced his real object in the gathering,
stated the situation of the college and the embarrassment of
its President, stated what he believed to be both their interest
and duty, and followed his precept by subscribing $1,700 for
indebtedness and $6,000 for the endowment fund of the college.
Tears of gratitude fell thick and fast from the eyes of the college
President and others; the President and the Rev. D. E. MAXSON
followed Mr. GOODRICH with well-chosen remarks, and the result
was over $8,000 subscribed on the spot; and Mr. GOODRICH succeeded
during the week in increasing it to exceed $13,000, the largest
subscription ever raised for Milton College.
- When the great rebellion came and the call for volunteers
and the draft on Milton for its quota
- followed, meetings were called and committees appointed to
raise money to procure the men. It required about $6,000, and
the town committee finally reported a failure to raise a sufficient
amount, and it was proposed to abandon the effort, when Mr. GOODRICH
came forward and asked an adjournment and volunteered to raise
the money, and the result was he got it, and the quota was filled.
- In 1869, Mr. GOODRICH drew the plan and specifications for
the Milton graded-school
- building, let the contract, superintended the building, laid
out the park surrounding it, superintended securing and setting
the trees, building the fence, etc.; giving his time without
compensation, for most of the season. His last public enterprise
was in the Milton Cemetery, which had lost its legal organization
by the neglect of electing officers and allowing its grounds
to become filled up and entirely neglected. He purchased for
the association ground to double their capacity, platted and
fenced them, setting evergreen trees within and elms surrounding
them, restaked the old lots, cleared out the unornamental trees
and rubbish and inaugurated a system of grading and improving
the lots under the skillful assistance of Mr. F. A. HOWE, which
has rendered these ground the most attractive and beautiful of
any in the country; Mr. GOODRICH, without recompense, giving
much time and attention to this enterprise. In the political
campaign of Mr. GOODRICH, in 1877, his usual fearless manner,
published an article reflecting on the integrity of a Republican
candidate for an office of honor and trust. He was promptly arrested,
with much flourish of trumpets, and brought to trial, and charged
with $10,000 damages. The case was a hot one, calling out about
100 witnesses, and was before the jury for the unprecedented
time of twenty-three days, the jury alone costing the county
exceeding $2,000; and they returned a verdict for the defendant.
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- Taken from "The History of Rock County, Wis."
(c)1879, pp. 821-823; lithograph p. 667.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
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