Alfred Russell Goodrich was born on 29 September 1818 at
Gill, Massachusetts.
2 He was the son of
Alfred Goodrich and
Abigail Howland.
1 He married
Charlotte Dobson, daughter of
Hon. Peter Dobson, on 18 October 1847.
3 Transcribed from Case: "educated at the Deerfield Academy, and afterward became a teacher there and for a time had full charge; began the study of medicine in 1843, and graduated at the Berkshire Medical College in 1846; afterward continued his studies in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City, where he began the practice of medicine; afterward went to Vernon, Conn., and engaged in mercantile and manufacturing enterprises. In 1870, he was representative to the general assembly, and in 1871 was a candidate for congress, but failed of election by a few votes; in 1873, he was elected State comptroller, and was reelected for three successive terms; in 1874, he was elected president of the Mutual Benefit Life Company, which position he now holds; is also a director of the Rockville Savings Bank, and president of the board of education of that town. In 1879, he was elected president of the Connecticut State Medical Society; he has been a member of the State board of agriculture, and now occupies various positions of honor and trust in his town and State; in 1882, he was elected State treasurer, and held the office two years. He married Charlotte Dobson, Oct. 18, 1847; she was a daughter of Hon. Peter Dobson, who came from England in 1809, and was a cotton manufacturer at Vernon, Conn. He was also a gentlemen of scientific tastes and attainments; in Silliman's "Journal of Arts and Sciences," July, 1842, p. 200, he is spoken of in high terms by Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, president of the Geological Society of London, as the first proposer of the present universally-accepted theory of "the wear of rocks and boulders by being suspended in ice and carried over rocks and earth under water," and "American science is congratulated in having possessed in him the original author of the best glacial theory yet known to the world."
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