Alfred Goodwill

Alfred Goodwill, known as Captain Goodwill (November 7, 1830 – November 27, 1905),^[1] was a native of London, England, who was a pioneer in the settlement of Claiborne and Webster parishes in northwestern Louisiana, USA. In 1880, he established the largest general store in the state of Louisiana in Minden, the seat of government of Webster Parish.^[2]

He was the maternal great-grandfather of former Louisiana Governor Murphy J. "Mike" Foster, Jr.

Biography

Goodwill left England after the death of his parents, John and Susannah Goodwill. in the 1850 census, he was a tailor and a boarder in Shreveport in Caddo Parish. He was later a clerk in a store in Webster Parish. He fought in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, during which he acquired the title "Captain" which followed him for the remainder of his life. From his first wife, Elizabeth Ford Farley (1834-1869), he had five children, the oldest of which was Alfred Jasper Goodwill (1855-1937), the father of the 1955 to 1958 mayor of Minden, Jasper Goodwill. The other children were Alice G. Bryce (1858-1947), Edgar (1862-1913), Kate l (1864-1879), and Christopher (1867-1901). In 1873, four years after Elizabeth's death, Captain Goodwill relocated from Claiborne Parish, where he was a large property owner, to Minden. He was joined by his second wife, the former Ida Victoria Hill (1838-1937), a native of Arkansas. In 1882, Goodwill opened an 18,000-square foot general store in Minden, a "superstore" believed at the time to be the largest such enterprise in the state. One could purchase from this store groceries, candies, pharmaceutical supplies, dry goods, hardware, a buggy, and even a coffin and embalming fluid.^[1][3]

Goodwill served on the Minden Railroad and Compress Company, which pushed successfully for the construction of a railroad link with the main depot, called Lane's Station, in Sibley, a community south of Minden. Without this link, Minden could have been seriously harmed economically.^[1] The Good Building had been constructed on the premise that the Vicksburg, Shreveport and Pacific Railway would stop in Minden. The line was instead absorbed by the Illinois Central Railroad, and the operation was reduced in scope. The Goodwill Building, which contained a 169-foot row of stores, was in time subdivided into seven units. The downtown structure was burned to the ground in the fire which swept through Minden in May 1933.^[4] As early as 1859, Goodwill served periodically on the Minden City Council.^[5]

In his second marriage Goodwill had four children, Olive, Harry (1878-1916), Susan, and Donald (1881-1966). Olive Goodwill (born c. 1875; date of death missing) married Robert Roberts, Jr. (born 1872; date of death also missing), a lawyer who was the mayor of, first, Farmerville in Union Parish, and then Minden (1905-1906), a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for Webster Parish (1908-1914), an appeal court judge and a state district judge in Minden, and finally an attorney in private practice in Shreveport. Their daughter, Olive Roberts (1904-1990),^[6] married Murphy J. Foster, a sugar planter in St. Mary Parish and a son of Governor Murphy J. Foster, Sr. The second Olive Roberts (1904-1990) was the mother of former Governor Mike Foster; born in 1930, he left the governorship after two terms in 2004. Captain Goodwill was hence the maternal great-grandfather of the second Governor Foster; Alfred Jasper Goodwill, the great-uncle, and Jasper Goodwill, a cousin.^[3]

Ida Goodwill and her stepson, Alfred Jasper Goodwill, died three days apart in March 1937, more than thirty years after the death of their husband and father, respectively.^[7][8]

Goodwill Street in Minden, which connects the Minden Cemetery with the Webster Parish Fairgrounds, and Goodwill Road near the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant in western Webster Parish, are named for Captain Goodwill.

References