James Goodwin was born in North Carolina in about 1780. His parentage is unknown at this time. It is not known to whom or where he married. He probably married in about 1804-1805.According to successive censuses, James and his wife had at least nine children. The names of only five can be verified at this time. I am including those people who I feel may be the children of James, based on the fact that they married in the locality, and lived in the vicinity of the Goodwin family.
According to the census, James Goodwin's first son was born in Tennessee in 1806, so we know that by that date, the family had emigrated to Tennessee. Family history records that James' fourth child, Tobias, was born in Bledsoe County, Tennessee, on February 16, 1814, and it is in Bledsoe County, that we first can verify the Goodwin family's location by the census. The 1830 census records James Goodwin, his wife, five sons, and two daughters as residents of Bledsoe County.
James' daughter, Elizabeth Sarah, her husband, Stephen Lyon, and their new baby, James, are close neighbors. Thomas Ogle and Joseph Ogle also live close by (James' son, Tobias, will later marry Thomas and Elizabeth Ogle's daughter, Matilda).
In about 1833, the Goodwin, Lyon, and Ogle families moved to Putnam County, Indiana. James Goodwin was a farmer. James' son, nineteen-year-old Tobias, moved with his parents to Indiana, and in Putnam County, on September 10, 1835, he married Matilda Ogle, the daughter of Thomas Ogle and his wife, Elizabeth. In 1840, both the James Goodwin and Stephen Lyon family are numerated in the census for Putnam County. James is listed with his wife, two sons, and four daughters.
Soon after the 1840 census was taken, the Goodwin, Lyon, and Ogle families emigrated to Buchanan County, Missouri. They settled in southeastern Buchanan County in Platte Township. They probably lived a little southwest of the area where the village of Gower, Missouri was incorporated in June of 1873.
James Goodwin's wife apparently died between the 1840-1850 census. The 1850, Buchanan County, Platte Township census, lists James Goodwin as head of household. His son, John, John's wife, Elizabeth, and their five children are living with James. His sons, Isaiah and Tobias, with their families; and widowed daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Lyon, and her family, are close neighbors; as are the Ogle families. James' son, Isaiah, died in 1854. His will was probated in Buchanan County.
In 1860, James is living with his daughter, Elizabeth Sarah Lyon. Family history records that James Goodwin died in 1866. His son, James E. Goodwin, died in June or July of 1866, and this could be the record that has been found. Regardless, census records would lead me to believe James Sr. did die between 1860-1870. His burial site is not known.
. +Unknown
.... +Elizabeth b: Abt 1809
2 Elizabeth Sarah or Sarah Elizabeth Goodwin b: 1809-1810
.... +Stephen Lyon b: 1800 d: 1846-1850
2 Isaiah (Isaac) Goodwin b: Abt 1813 d: May 22, 1854
.... +Millie (Milla or Mirtle) b: 1808-1809
2 Tobias Goodwin b: February 16, 1814 d: February 05, 1899
.... +Matilda Ogle b: October 04, 1817 d: February 02, 1899
2 Daughter b: 1815-1820
2 Edward Carl Goodwin? b: 1815-1820
.... +Nancy Ann Ogle?
2 James E. Goodwin b: Abt 1824 d: July 09, 1866
.... +Sarah J. b: Abt 1825
2 Nancy Goodwin? b: 1820-1825
.... +Joseph Groom b: Abt 1815
2 Caswell Goodwin? b: 1825-1830
.... +Mary Ann Cornelius
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