Title: William Goodell Family Papers, 1737-1933

ID: RG 30/029

Extent: 1.2 Linear Feet

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Administrative/Biographical History

William Goodell, champion of the movements for anti-slavery and temperance, was born October 25, 1792 in Coventry, Chenango County, New York. His parents were Rhoda (Guernsey) and Frederick Goodell, a soldier of Gen. George Washington (1732-99). In 1803, Rhoda Goodell died, and William was sent to Pomfret, Connecticut to live with his grandmother Goodell, a convert of the English evangelist George Whitefield (1714-70). After five years in Pomfret, William found employment with a mercantile firm in Providence, Rhode Island. On January 1, 1817, age 19, he sailed as supercargo on a merchant vessel bound for Indonesia, China, and Europe. Returning to the United States in 1819, he entered the shipping business, living in Providence, Rhode Island, Wilmington, North Carolina, and Alexandria, Virginia. On July 4, 1823, he married Clarissa C. Cady, daughter of Josiah Cady of Providence.

When his venture in Virginia failed, Goodell gave up his business pursuits and devoted himself to the cause of temperance reform. After some years in New York City, where he had been a director of the Mercantile Library Association, he returned in 1827 to Providence to edit a reform weekly, the Investigator and General Intelligencer. The paper became connected with the National Philanthropist of Boston and was moved to New York City in 1830, where it was published as the Genius of Temperance. The paper had subscribers in every state and increased its subscriptions through Goodell's public lectures. At the same time, Goodell began to publish the Female Advocate to spur the reform of women, and the Youth's Temperance Lecturer, an early temperance paper for children.

Linked to Goodell's temperance crusade was his anti-slavery campaign. In Boston in 1833, Goodell helped to organize the American Anti-Slavery Society, with Arthur Tappan (1786-1865) as President. Goodell's circle also included abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79) and poet John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92). The Emancipator, published under Goodell's name after 1834, soon became the Society's organ. In 1836, Goodell appeared before the Massachusetts legislature on behalf of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, arguing against the appeal of certain Southern states for legislation restraining the anti-slavery agitators. He became director of an anti-slavery paper in Utica, New York, the Friend of Man, which he edited for six years in Utica and Whitesboro. Here, he also published for one year the monthly Anti-Slavery Lecturer and began in 1842 the Christian Investigator. In 1840, he helped organize the Liberty Party.

In 1843, Goodell moved to Honeoye, New York, where he founded an independent congregation based upon his anti-slavery, temperance, and church union ideals. He was never formally ordained. He continued his political work, abandoning the Liberty Party to found the Liberty League in 1847. The League advanced Gerrit Smith (1797-1874) as its candidate for the presidency in 1848 on a platform of opposition to slavery, tariffs, land monopoly, liquor traffic, war, and secret societies. Smith declined the nomination.

At Honeoye and later in New York City, Goodell wrote extensively against slavery. His published works on the subject include Views Upon American Constitutional Law, in its Bearing Upon American Slavery (1844), The Democracy of Christianity (1849), Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A History of the Great Struggle in Both Hemispheres (1852), and The American Slave Code, in Theory and Practice (1853). In 1854, Goodell began editing the New York weekly, the American Jubilee, later titled the Radical Abolitionist, which was enlarged and published as Principia. Following the Civil War, Goodell preached occasionally and wrote for reform and religious papers. In 1869, he was among the organizers of the National Prohibition Party.

In 1870, Goodell and his wife moved to Janesville, Wisconsin, to be near his children. He died on February 14, 1878.

William and Clarissa Goodell had two daughters. Rhoda Lavinia ("Vinnie") Goodell (1839-80) was an attorney in Janesville, Wisconsin. Clarissa Maria Goodell (d. 1899; enr. Oberlin 1846-47) married (1850) Lewis Phidello Frost (1824-93; A. B. Oberlin 1848, T. 1850), son of Mercy Fuller and Nelson Amasa Frost (d. 1860), who had heard evangelist Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) preach in Rochester, New York between 1824 and 1833. Clarissa and Lewis Frost had six children, of whom only three are identified. They were William Goodell Frost (1854-1938; A.B. Oberlin 1876), Professor of Greek at Oberlin (1876-92) and President of Berea College, Berea, Kentucky (1892-1920), Nelson Amasa Frost (1866-1931; enr. Oberlin 1880-81, 1883-84, prep.), and Willard Jerome Frost (b. 1869; enr. Oberlin 1888-95), an editor and minister from Williamston, Michigan.

SOURCES CONSULTED

Dictionary of American Biography. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1928.

Frost, William Goodell, For the Mountains, an Autobiography. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1937.

General Catalogue of Oberlin College, 1833-1908. Oberlin: Oberlin College, 1909.

Student Files (RG 28) of Clarissa Maria Goodell, William Goodell Frost, and Wesley Frost

Author: Valerie Komor

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Administrative Information

Scope and Contents:

The collection is organized into four records series: I. Goodell and Frost Family Papers; II. William Goodell Papers; III. Lavinia Goodell Papers; and IV. William Goodell Frost Papers. Within series, materials are arranged into subseries and thereunder chronologically or alphabetically by topic or type of material. The original folder headings, established by the archivist in 1969, are largely maintained.

With the exception of two letters (copies, 1833, 1836) to William Lloyd Garrison, William Goodell's correspondence does not document his anti-slavery, temperance, or religious activities. Instead, it reveals Goodell's devotion to his family. Correspondents include Clarissa, his wife, Josiah Cady, his father-in-law, Clarissa Maria, his daughter, Lewis P. Frost, his son-in-law, and Electa Goodell, his sister-in-law. Correspondence from William Goodell includes two letters to his wife (1845, 1847) and one letter (newspaper clipping, 1876) to the Rev. John Russell, Secretary of the National Prohibition Committee in Detroit.

Goodell's early mercantile venture (1813-14) with the Providence firm he co-founded, A. and W. Goodell, and his service aboard merchant ships as supercargo (1817-19) is documented by ms. contracts, invoices, bills, memoranda of cargo, and customer orders for such items as Chinese porcelain tea sets often accompanied by specifications for their decoration. Other documents indicate prevailing prices of goods at Pinang, Powshong, and Canton. Included among these papers are lists of Bengali, Malay, and Hindu words written phonetically, showing Goodell to have been engaged in linguistic study during his ocean voyages.

Goodell's writings (1842-74) consist of small ms. booklets tied together with string containing sermons and temperance tracts. The bulk of these appear to have been written for preaching to his congregation at Honeoye, New York, but many were written in Janesville, Wisconsin, at the home of his daughter, Clarissa Maria Frost. The papers of his other daughter, Rhoda Lavinia Goodell, include legal briefs and attached ms. documents relating to her legal work. Also present are letters she received (1879) from friends in response to a memorial to her father, prepared one year after his death in 1878. The correspondence includes one letter from Lavinia to her sister explaining the enclosed letters, one of which was written by Sarah Tappan, wife of Arthur Tappan.

This collection contains legal documents and correspondence relating to the Goodells (1737-1824) of Pomfret, Windham County, Connecticut and to the Frosts (1793-1861) of Riga, Monroe County, New York. Files include the wills, deeds, leases, and estate inventories of Zechariah and Hannah Goodell (parents of Samuel and Zechariah Goodell); Zechariah's wife, Lucinda, their children, Matilda, Mary, and Lucy, and Harvey; and Beacham Goodell. Goodell family correspondence (1811-22) mainly includes letters written to William Goodell from brothers Garnsey and Ezekiel, from Mary Goodell, and from Jonah and Josiah Cady. Letters touch upon family matters, the prospect of war in 1812, land and business dealings, and farming.

Documents pertaining to the Frosts of Riga, New York include the will (1859) of Nelson A. Frost, father-in-law of Clarissa Goodell Frost, the will (1828) of Nelson's father, Amasa Frost, and several land deeds.

The papers of Goodell’s grandson William Goodell Frost include correspondence, speeches, and newspaper clippings. They document his campaign for Lieutenant Governor of Ohio (1884-85), political views, particularly with regard to temperence, his experiences at Oberlin College and Berea College (Kentuck), and his family genealogy.

Detailed Description
Series I: Goodell and Frost Family Papers, 1737-1861, undated
Series II: William Goodell Papers, 1813-1882, undated
Series III: Rhoda Lavinia Goodell Papers, 1874-1880, undated
Series IV: William Goodell Frost Papers, 1884-1933, undated

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