Description

John Noble Goodwin (b.1824 - d.1887) was born in Augusta, Maine on October 19, 1824 to John Goodwin and Mary (Noble) Goodwin.

He married Susan (Howard) Goodwin Robinson on October 27, 1857 in Maine. They had three children.

John, an attorney, was elected to the Maine Senate in 1853. He was elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 1860. President Abraham Lincoln appointed him as the first Territorial Governor of Arizona in 1863.

As the Territorial Governor he selected the site for the Territorial Capitol to be Prescott, Arizona.

Here he and Secretary of the Territory, Richard C. McCormick, built a log cabin, which would serve as the governor’s mansion. This cabin is still standing. In his address to the 1st Territorial Legislature on September 30, 1864, Goodwin reminded them that under the Arizona Organic Act, Arizona had inherited the laws of the New Mexico Territory, which it had previously been a part of. He called for a commission to review and rewrite the laws (legal code); immediate repeal of acts allowing for peonage and imprisonment for debt; and for U.S. Army troops and the creation of a volunteer militia to deal with hostile Native Americans. The Territorial Legislature’s first act gave Goodwin the power to create a commission to address Arizona’s laws. Goodwin was responsible for dividing the territory into judicial districts, appointing government officials, establishing postal routes, and the creation of public schools.

Goodwin was elected as a Republican Delegate from Arizona Territory to the Thirty-ninth Congress (March 4, 1865 - March 3, 1867). He never returned to Arizona. Goodwin resumed the practice of law in New York City.

He died in Paraiso Springs, California on April 29, 1887.

Burial at Forest Grove Cemetery in Augusta, Maine.

Sources: Arizona Memory Project; Maine Births and Christenings 1739-1900; findagrave.com.