Santa
Clara County
Biographies
PETER GUSTAV GOODMAN
Since 1878 Mr. Goodman has been owner and proprietor of the ranch which he now occupies three miles southwest of San Jose, on Senter road. Here he has a fine tract of twenty-five acres, of which twenty-three acres are in fruit, principally prunes and apricots. Mr. Goodman is essentially a western man and was born in Oregon City, Ore., Christmas day, 1843, a son of Richard Goodman, who was born in Virginia in 1812. Leaving the south the father settled near Boonville, Mo., but not being especially pleased with the locality for a permanent home, crossed the plains to Oregon in 1843, making the journey behind a slow-plodding ox-team. His son Peter was the first white child born in their train, and was one of the first white children in the territory. By trade the father was a tanner, and upon locating in Oregon City followed it until going to Waldo Hills, Marion county, where he pre-empted a section of land from the government and engaged in general farming, raising cattle and growing grain. In 1848, one year in advance of the great influx of gold seekers, he came to California filled with bright hopes of finding his fortune in the mines, but that same year he with four others was murdered in cold blood by the Indians near Marysville, Cal.
The wife and mother, formerly Sarah Cooper, also came from the south and was born in Kentucky in 1814. After her husband's death she heroically set to work to care for her children, making her home in Oregon until 1854, when she brought her family to California, locating in the San Ramona valley near Antioch, where, with the assistance of her children, she engaged in the stock business. The year 1859 witnessed their removal to the vicinity of Stockton, and there, too, they engaged in raising stock. The mother continued in the Golden state until 1863, returning to Oregon that year, and her death occurred near Port Orford in 1878. Her family comprised eight children, three sons and five daughters.
As he was only about eleven years old when his mother brought the family to California, Peter G. Goodman was educated principally in this state, although his advantages were limited, owing to the necessity of helping in the family support. In 1860 he engaged in placer mining on the Middle Yuba and at Moore's flats, but in 1864 went to Stockton and resumed the stock business which his mother had carried on until her removal to Oregon the year previous. In the meantime he had become half owner of a tract of fourteen hundred acres of land on which he continued to raise cattle until 1874, but at the death of his partner that year, sold his stock and retired from the cattle business. An entirely different line of business engaged his attention for the following two years, when as a member of the firm of Coleburg & Goodman he engaged in forwarding freight from Stockton to Visalia, King City, and in fact to all points in the San Joaquin valley, both wagons and boats being called into requisition in the prosecution of the business. In 1876 Mr. Goodman engaged in the hotel business at Banta, San Joaquin county, conducting a first-class house until 1878 and in the meantime was also agent for the Naglee grant, a tract of eighteen thousand acres of land devoted to farming and stock-raising. Disposing of his interest there in 1878 Mr. Goodman came to Santa Clara county, whose growth and upbuilding he has labored unremittingly. The commodious house now occupied by the family was erected in 1889, and in all its appointments is up-to-date, a credit to the owner and to the locality.
At Banta, Cal., occurred the marriage of Peter G. Goodman and Miss Julia Smith, a native of Ireland. Politically Mr. Goodman is a Democrat, and an active worker in the cause of his chosen party. Although Mr. Goodman was but a boy when the Rogue river war occurred he was an active participant, and for six months assisted in subduing the red men, toward who, no doubt he felt revengeful on account of the cruel death of his father.
Transcribed
6-29-15 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
ญญญญSource: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Page 661. The Chapman Publishing
Co., Chicago, 1904.
ฉ 2015 Marilyn R. Pankey.