Lavinia Goodell

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We are delighted to illuminate the important work of Lavinia Goodell. This blog shares significant moments in Lavinia’s life and excerpts from her personal papers. You may browse the posts or use the Table of Contents to find posts that interest you. Please subscribe and help spread the word about Wisconsin's first woman lawyer.

Nov

2021

“I am afraid you will be disappointed about the book.”

Maria Frost, January 21, 1856.

Lavinia Goodell published numerous articles and stories in her lifetime, but she was not the only family member with literary tendencies. Her father, William Goodell, was a prolific writer who authored many books and countless articles, poems, and letters to the editor. It is not as well known that Lavinia’s sister, Maria Goodell Frost, was also a published author and was the only Goodell sister to publish a book.

In 1855, the American Reform Tract and Book Society offered a $100 premium for the best manuscript for a religious anti-slavery Sunday school book. Out of the forty-six manuscripts received, the Society chose Maria’s work, which was titled Gospel Fruits, or Christianity Illustrated. In addition to the prestige of seeing her book in print, the prize money was a welcome bonus for Maria’s young family. (For perspective, Maria’s pastor husband’s salary was approximately $500 a year, so $100 was a significant boost to the family’s income.) Maria received the good news that she had won the competition in late December 1855.

Letter to Maria Goodell Frost from American Tract & Book Society, December 20, 1855

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Oct

2021

“We are in possession of our share of the Estate of your late uncle, Isaac H. Cady”

William Goodell, August 7, 1869

Lavinia Goodell’s mother’s only brother, Isaac Cady, was a prosperous bookseller and publisher in Providence, Rhode Island.

In 1840, Lavinia’s mother, Clarissa, reported to her father, Josiah Cady, that the family had seen Isaac’s advertisement in the newspaper and that Lavinia’s fourteen-year-old sister Maria said she should like to step into his bookstore. Lavinia’s mother said, “I told her Uncle would not like to have her handle his books.”

For a number of years, beginning in 1847, Isaac Cady had a business in New York City, in partnership with Daniel Burgess. Cady & Burgess published a number of textbooks written by Roswell C. Smith, another of Lavinia’s uncles and the father of Carrie Ellsworth, Lavinia’s cousin who died unexpectedly in 1866.

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Oct

2021

“I am glad Aunt Mira is so kind as to board you.”

Clarissa Goodell to Lavinia Goodell, September 21, 1867

Mira Hill was one of the many women who played an important role in Lavinia Goodell’s life.

Mira was Lavinia’s great aunt, the half sister of her maternal grandfather, Josiah Cady. Mira married John Wheeler Hill, a policeman, and for many years the couple lived in the Green Point section of Brooklyn. In the 1860s, after Lavinia’s parents moved to Lebanon, Connecticut, Lavinia lived with the Hills for long stretches on two occasions and wrote and received many letters there.

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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

“Has Willie enlisted yet?”

Lavinia Goodell, August 12, 1862

Lavinia Goodell did not have children, but she clearly doted on her four nephews and had a special relationship with the eldest, William Goodell Frost. Named after his maternal grandfather, the family affectionately called him Willie.

Willie was born in 1854, when Lavinia was fifteen. When he was four years old, his mother wrote to Lavinia, “Willie says, “I wonder if Aunt Vinny curls her hair yet. How pretty it must look. I do want to see her.'”