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From William Goodwin               
(1859)    

                              CHAPTER  NINETEEN
                                          WAR            

  My life has passed rapidly, like the cycle of the leaves of the hickory; green and strong
in their youth, golden in mid-life, and dark, drab browns at the end. It is now 1859, and
I’m in the autumn of my life, at age seventy-seven. My hands are too feeble to write, so
my daughter, Nancy Jane, who has never married and still lives with us, is doing the
writing for me as I talk.
      Our family has grown and prospered in a period that has marked the state of Alabama
as one of the leaders in the production of cotton. Thousands of settlers, the big majority of
them being tillers of the soil, have moved into the fertile valleys of the Alabama River and
it’s many tributaries. This central part of the state we live in is now known as the Black
Belt of Alabama, so named for the rich, black soil. This area could have been named for
the thousands of Negro slaves who actually, because of their labor, are responsible for the
plantation lifestyle that so many of the families here now enjoy.  
   Railroads have now added a new dimension to the already prosperous inhabitants of
our area. The emergence of the railroad is slowly but surely diminishing the use of the
mighty steamboats that have plied the river for the past thirty-five years. As I think back
on the many wonderful, exciting trips we, as a family, made on the majestic Nettie Quill,
my heart is a little saddened. The lifestyle we’ve so enjoyed is slowly, but surely changing.
Our children are now all grown and, with the exception of Nancy Jane, are all married
with children of their own. I’ve lived a very happy and prosperous life and have one major
regret, which I plan to rectify at this time. It is the failure to keep a promise to Papa,
Theophilus H. Goodwin, which I made in January, 1826, the day our son, Henry Claiborne
was born. I assured him I would, on a regular basis, keep up with and enter information in
the Goodwin family records. Here goes:
   Our daughter, Harriet, married William Wright in 1828, when she was only seventeen.
They now have five children, Elizabeth, John, James, Joseph, and Benjamin.
   My brother, Wiley, died at the early age of forty-five back in 1830, leaving his wife,
Amy, and daughter, Caroline.
   Mary and I had a beautiful baby daughter in 1830 and named her Lucinda after my
grandma, Lucy. Sarah, still unmarried, had a daughter the same year and named her
Gillianna, after my sister. The father was said to be a Kingsley fellow from up around
Selma. They were engaged to be married when he got himself killed in a duel over a poker
game. Seems like Sarah, bless her soul, was never meant to have a husband.
   The family of William Frank Branch moved into Palmyra in 1830 and still live just a
few miles up the road from us toward Bragg’s store. He married Henrietta Sconyer in
1831 and now has twelve children. They, like us, live in Lowndes County, which was
formed from a part of Montgomery County in 1830. During the same year, the town of
Big Swamp, became Hayneville, and the County Court house is there.
   Aunt Amy Myrick died on their plantation in November 1834 and Uncle John Myrick
died in 1835. As they promised, my brother T.J. got the store. We haven’t heard a word
from him since the letter informing us of their deaths. In his letter he did tell us he married
Mary Seals in 1841 and they now have five children, Henry, eighteen; Richard, fourteen;
Mary Ann, ten; Miles, five; and John, four. 
   One of the worst tragedies in our lives occured in 1833, when our beloved Willie T.
died with what the doctors called whooping cough. We have never gotten over his death,
but things were better with the birth of another son in 1835. In spite of my objections,
Mary named him William. Every time we called his name, we thought of Willie T. so we
quickly started calling him ‘Bill’.
   Our son, John, or Jack as we call him, married Mary Jane Autrey on March 10, 1835,
and they now have nine children, Richard, Mary Lucrecia, Ann, Elizabeth, Louisa, Nancy
Jane, John, Jr., Joseph, and Emma.
   Sarah wrote to us in 1836, telling us Papa was very sick, and the only thing he took an
interest in was his drinking. She was now in charge of all the farm work and does most of
the work herself ‘til it comes to planting and harvesting. She has the original agreement
Papa made with Uncle Young. Papa died in March of 1837 and was buried in a clearing
about two hundred yards from their house. 
   Mama passed away in the early 1840s and left everything to Sarah. She was buried next
to Papa in what is now known as the Pleasant Hill Cemetery.
   Simpson married Margaret Shanks in 1842 and now has six children: Wiley, Henry
Jefferson, Mary Ann, Nancy Catherine, Frances Louisa, and Martha Elizabeth. 
   Sarah’s boy, Malachi, married Shebe Smith in 1843, and I haven’t heard anything of
them since that time. They must’ve moved to Mississippi or Arkansas or somewhere.
   My sister, Charity Hatcher died, in 1844 and Dempsey remarried the next year. 
   Sarah’s daughter, Gillianna, married James Durwood McGee in 1847. He’s the son of
old Josiah McGee who moved to Alabama in the same wagon train as us. They have five
children, Sarah Elizabeth, Eugene, Laura, Mary, and Nancy. 
   My brother, Julius, died in 1848. His son, James, died a year later, and two more sons
died young; Andrew, in 1853 and Lafayette in 1856. Margaret almost grieved herself to
death during that time.
   Papa’s lifetime friend, Uncle Young died in 1849, at age eighty-three. He divided up all
his land, money and slaves among his children.
   Henry Claiborne married Elvira Howard in 1852. They have three boys, Thomas Lloyd,
born November 6, 1852, Henry Alonza, born December 9, 1854, and George Albert, born
just this year. 
   Our daughter Lucinda, or Lucy as we call her, married John Adams in 1851. They have
three children, William Mucklin, John, Jr., and Laura.
   On December 20th, last year, our youngest son, William R., or Bill, married Melissa
Jane Crow. They have no children yet.
   Calvin and Martha Cassady’s boy, John Calvin, married Lucretia Cain in 1848 and they
have a boy, Calvin Cain Cassady, born in 1850.
   Dan and Jennie Sullivan’s boy, James, married Eleanor Pierce in 1848. Dan and Jennie
now have three more boys, Daniel, Jr., born in 1829, Andrew Jackson, born in 1832, and
Francis Marion, born in 1835. Dan, Jr., married Mary Jane Hudson last year, and the other
two are still unmarried and living with Dan and Jennie.
   There, I feel better now that I’ve fulfilled my promise to Papa. Even though I did it
hurriedly, I believe it is accurate. The important thing is that it’s done.
   The United States acquired a vast amount of new western territory in the wars with
Mexico in 1846-1848. New states are being formed and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854
provided these new territories could decide themselves, whether or not to allow slaves.
Several bloody battles erupted in Kansas over this matter.
   I just read in the Montgomery paper where John Brown, a radical abolitionist from
Kansas, led a raid on the Federal Arsenal in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. His sole purpose is
to start a slave insurrection. One of the new antislavery political parties, the Republicans,
they call themselves, is supporting a young abolitionist, Abraham Lincoln from Illinois, for
President of the United States in the election next year.
   On a beautiful October Sunday morning, a non-preaching day at our church, all a’ mine
and Mary’s children and grandchildren were at our place for a family get-together. After a
fine dinner, all the children were out in the yard playing, and the grown ups were sitting on
the porch enjoying the beautiful fall leaves and the cool autumn air. 
   I said, “Y’all listen to me a minute! I got somethin’ I wanta say. Y’all know there’s a
lot a’ talk ‘bout slavery right now; ‘bout whether it’s right or wrong; ‘bout whether the
new states should or shouldn’t allow it, and so on. I wanta tell all a’ y’all right now. I’ve
never owned a slave. My Papa never owned one. Even though Coot and Pansy were left
to him, he didn’t consider them slaves.  None a’ y’all ever owned one, and I hope you
never do. But y’all can mark my word. If that young, Repubilcan abolitionist, Abraham
Lincoln gets elected, we’ll end up in one a’ tha’ gol-dangdest wars in history. 
   Y’all can also mark my word on this - the rich slave and plantation owning politicians
from this state are gonna want you and yo’ boys to do the fightin’ and dyin’ for ‘em. If
there is a war, those same politicians are gonna try to blame it on every little thing they
can think of other than slavery. If these politicians are true Christians like they claim to be,
they know slavery is wrong, and they’ll just be trying to ease their conscience a little. Let’s
just hope and pray we don’t have a war.”

From Nancy Jane Goodwin, 1n 1860:

   The front page of the Montgomery Advertiser that announced in bold headlines the
election of Abraham Lincoln also carried on the last page, a five line obituary on my
father, William Goodwin. 

THE END

From the Author:
  According to the 1790 Federal Census, there were only 190 Goodwin families.  In the 1996
 Federal Census there were 34,327 Goodwin families. How many of these are descendants 
of Theophilus? I have no earthly idea.