Life in Wisconsin: 1871-1880 Archives - Page 7 of 16

Oct

2021

“Mr. Norcross called with a quantity of legal writing he wanted me to do at once.”

Lavinia Goodell, October 18, 1873

Lavinia Goodell’s relationship with Janesville, Wisconsin attorney Pliny Norcross was complicated. He assisted her in her legal studies and moved her application to be admitted to the Rock County bar, but when hiring law clerks and associates for his law firm, he chose young men who lacked Lavinia’s intellect and work ethic. He declined to act as Lavinia’s co-counsel on an important case, and when serving as opposing counsel on a small suit, he attempted to win the case by taking advantage of her inexperience. But 1870s Janesville was not a large city. Lavinia crossed paths with Norcross frequently, both personally and professionally, and by all accounts they remained on reasonably good terms until she left Janesville in late 1879.

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Oct

2021

“Aunt Lois feels Carrie’s death more and more every day.”

Clarissa Goodell, September 6, 1866

Like most families in the nineteenth century, the Goodells experienced the premature deaths of family members, including Lavinia’s two year old niece Harriet Frost, an unnamed infant nephew, and her twenty-three year old cousin Amanda Goodell. In 1866, Lavinia lost another cousin, thirty-seven year old Caroline Smith Ellsworth.

Carrie was born in 1829, the only child of Lavinia’s mother’s sister, Lois Cady, and her husband, Roswell Smith, the author of textbooks on grammar, geography, and arithmetic. In 1854, Carrie married Oliver Chaffee Ellsworth, a Boston publisher whose paternal grandfather was Oliver Ellsworth, the third Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and whose maternal grandfather was Noah Webster. The couple had one son, William Webster Ellsworth, born in 1855. Willie Ellsworth was the same age as, and a frequent correspondent of, Lavinia’s eldest nephew, William Goodell Frost.

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Oct

2021

“Poor Cleaveland is in deep affliction.”

Lavinia Goodell, December 22, 1869

In her 1879 will, Lavinia Goodell named her uncle, Josiah Cleaveland Cady as trustee.

Cleaveland, (sometimes spelled Cleveland) as he was called, was born in 1837, the son of Lavinia’s mother’s father, Deacon Josiah Cady, and his second wife, Lydia. Cleaveland was more than thirty years Clarissa Goodell’s junior and was only two years older than Lavinia. The Cadys lived in Providence, Rhode Island, but there was always concern about disease in cities, so after the birth Lydia and the baby spent some time in the country. They returned to Providence when Cleaveland was seven months old. Josiah reported, “We are as well now as we have been perhaps for a yearÂ pastÂ but we have no promise of tomorrow.”

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Sep

2021

“Southold is a pleasant country village.”

Lavinia Goodell, July 1, 1863

Other than her sister, Maria Frost, and her cousin, Sarah Thomas, Sarah Case was one of Lavinia Goodell’s closest friends. Sarah Case held such a special place in Lavinia’s heart that Lavinia’s 1879 will bequeathed her $1500 and a gold locket.

It is unknown when and where Lavinia and Sarah met, but it seems likely they became acquainted in Brooklyn in the early 1860s. Lavinia first mentioned Sarah in an 1863 letter to her sister, saying, “I wish you knew her. She is a very fine girl. She is learning to be a telegraph operator.”

Like Lavinia, Sarah Case was born in 1839. She grew up in the village of Southold, on the North Fork of Long Island. Her father was a farmer. Many historians consider Southold to be the first English settlement on Long Island, dating back to 1640.

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Sep

2021

“Wasn’t Gerrit Smith a dashing good creature?”

Lavinia Goodell, November 7, 1861

Gerrit Smith was a prominent abolitionist and social reformer who was a longtime acquaintance of Lavinia’s father, William Goodell. The Goodell family remained friends with Smith for the rest of his life, and Smith was one of Lavinia’s mentors.

Smith was born in Utica, New York in 1797. (Lavinia Goodell was born in Utica in 1839.) Smith’s father was an early partner of John Jacob Astor in the fur trade. Shortly after Smith’s father died in 1837, a financial crisis led to a depression that lasted into the 1840s. Banks would not provide Smith with the loans he needed to meet his business obligations, so he turned to his father’s old partner for help. Astor loaned Smith $250,000 in return for a mortgage on property for which Smith had paid $14,000 ten years earlier. Due to a mixup, there was a delay in sending the mortgage to Astor, so for several weeks Astor had nothing but Smith’s word to secure the $250,000 loan.

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Jul

2021

“My trunk has got stuck somewhere on the road.”

Lavinia Goodell, September 15, 1871

If you thought that lost and damaged luggage was a problem unique to air travel, you would be mistaken. In the 1800s, rail passengers encountered the same difficulties. Lavinia Goodell had the misfortune of suffering both lost and damaged bags during her move to Wisconsin.

In the fall of 1871, Lavinia left her New York City job at Harper’s Bazar and moved to Janesville to help care for her aging parents. William and Clarissa Goodell had been living with their elder daughter, Maria Frost’s, family but when a change of employment required the Frosts to move out of Janesville, Lavinia made the decision to go to Wisconsin to live with her parents.

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Jul

2021

The Lavinia Goodell Walking Tour

We are proud to debut two brand new, self-guided walking tours of downtown Janesville, Wisconsin which allow fans to follow in the footsteps of Lavinia Goodell, Wisconsin’s first woman lawyer. The walking tours pass by sites that Lavinia saw every day when she “went down street” (West Milwaukee Street) to go to her law office or pick up the mail at the post office; made the trek up the hill to the Rock County Courthouse; visited clients and taught classes at the jail on the bank of the Rock River; or stopped by the Janesville Gazette office to drop off an article she had written. We hope that people visiting southern Wisconsin take the time to look up these sites and see life as Lavinia lived it in the 1870s. Those who cannot take the tour in person can take a virtual tour. We encourage you to scroll through the images below, or click to enlarge them. You may also view the full walking tour as a PDF here. A printed brochure version of the tour is coming soon and will be available at select Rock County locations.

Jun

2021

“I received my commission as notary public.”

Lavinia Goodell, February 10, 1875

Since Lavinia Goodell was the first woman admitted to practice law in Wisconsin, it is likely that she was also the first woman in Wisconsin to receive a commission as a notary public. Lavinia’s first mention of serving as a notary appears in a February 10, 1875 letter that she wrote to her sister, Maria Frost:

I received, yesterday, my commission as notary public, from the Gov. So now I can administer the oath, acknowledge deeds, etc. The certificate expresses the Gov’s confidence in my “integrity & ability,” etc. & I had besides a note from his secretary, Mr. Bird (my opposing counsel on the Burrington suit) – read more about the Burrington case here – saying he was very happy to do it for me.

Maria must have inquired what was entailed in being a notary public because on March 24, 1875 Lavinia sent her a lengthy explanation and affixed an imprint of her notary seal to the letter.