Goodwin family photograph collection, 1840-1988

James Goodwin and his family, as new converts to the Mormon church, emigrated from England to America in 1850. They lived in New Orleans and St. Louis before reaching Utah in 1859. Goodwin's five sons (William, Frederick, Charles Isaac, George, and Henry James) eventually settled in the Cache Valley area and three of the five brothers married daughters of LDS apostle Ezra T. Benson. The brothers, and William in particular, were entrepeneurs in the valley, opening a dry-good store and a mercantile shop called Goodwin Brothers store and establishing a family ranch. By 1874, due to disagreements over business practices with local Church leaders, each of the brothers had left the LDS Church and three of them joined the local Episcopal Church. By 1890, however, only two of the brothers, William and Charles Isaac, remained in Cache Valley. William was named as the Probate Court Judge of Cache County in 1888; serving until shortly before his death in 1894. He also chose the present location of the Agricultural College of Utah (now Utah State University) and Charles Issac's wife Sarah Godwin Brown Goodwin served as the institution's first librarian.