California Biographies Source: History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California by: C M Gidney - Santa Barbara. Benjamin Brooks - San Luis Obispo. Edwin M Sheridan - Ventura Volumes II - Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL., 1917 This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm EDGAR D. GOODENOUGH. The numerous land transactions in which the name of Edgar D. Goodenough has appeared in Ventura County, his present extensive holdings, his important operations as a citrus fruit grower and farmer, have made him one of the prominent men of this section, where he has spent the greater part of his life. His father O. J. Goodenough was also a well known Ventura County citizen. Born in Watertown, New York, February 9, 1836, he lived in the East until young manhood. In 1856, going to Galesburg, Illinois, he remained there two years and then entered the nursery business. His next removal was to Magnolia, Iowa, where he was employed as a teacher until 1861. In that year he enlisted for service in the Union army at the call for three months volunteers. From 1862 to 1863 he was employed as wagon master for the Government, carrying supplies to various western posts, and having about sixty Government wagons in the train. That gave him a practical experience in the freighting business as then conducted over those vast western territories where as yet no railroad had appeared. On leaving the Government service in 1863 he began hauling freight independently between Salt Lake City and Virginia City, Montana. He spent two years in that hazardous occupation and then returned to Magnolia, Iowa, where once more he taught school for a year. Moving to Logan, Iowa, he was a contractor and builder for three years, and then located on a farm near Pigeon, Iowa, where he lived until 1875. In that year O. J. Goodenough came west to Ventura, spent six months as a carpenter, and then removing to Saticoy bought forty-two acres which he farmed until 1883. Selling out he moved to the Sespe Grant, bought 320 acres, and occupied it as a farm and stock ranch until his death, June 11, 1895. He also contracted and built some of the first buildings of Fillmore including the first school building and the first church. He was a member of the Masonic order and the Order of Foresters and at one time served as justice of the peace at Saticoy. Politically he was a republican. He was one of the organizers and one of the first elders of the Fillmore Presbyterian Church. In Magnolia, Iowa, September 6, 1866, O. J. Goodenough married Miss Zedora Helen Tietsort, a native of Michigan and now residing in Fillmore. There were five children: Mrs. R. A. Holley and Mrs. Harry W. Hiller, both of Sespe, Ventura County; Glen C., deceased; Earle O. of Fillmore and Edgar D. of Santa Paula. Edgar D. Goodenough, who was born at Logan, Iowa, August 5, 1868, and was seven years of age when his parents came to California, gained most of his early education in Ventura County, when he attended the public schools until 1883. Following that he was an employe on his father’s ranch and at the age of eighteen became chain man for the civil engineer engaged in subdividing the Sespe Rancho. After one year in that work he put in two years at teaming in the stone quarry in the Sespe canyon, and was then on his father’s ranch until 1890. Mr. Goodenough afterwards worked as an employe on the Kellogg ranch a year, rented ninety acres on the Sespe for two years, and in 1893 bought seven acres in the Sespe Canyon. This land he set out in lemons, and while developing it he also for thirteen years had the supervision of the citrus groves owned by J. D. McNab of Riverside. In 1896 he bought twenty-two acres on the Sespe, and this land is devoted to bean culture. Seventeen acres bought by Mr. Goodenough in 1900 in the Sespe canyon has since been developed by him, ten acres of the tract being in oranges. Associated with Mr. Stowe he bought in 1906 eleven acres at Fillmore, and that has been subdivided and sold under the name of the Stowe-Goodenough subdivision, which was the first subdivision put on the market at Fillmore. In 1907 he acquired eighteen acres more on Sespe Avenue, ten acres of which are now in oranges. A thirty-acre purchase made in 1908 in the Sespe canyon has been developed by the planting of twenty acres in lemons, and he has since sold five acres of the lemon grove. In the same year he changed his residence from Sespe to Santa Paula, purchasing the home where he now resides at 302 Santa Barbara Street. In 1909 he and Mr. Leavens of Santa Paula bought 560 acres near Piru, and this valuable tract is now divided seventy acres in apricots, seventy acres in lemons, 200 acres in hay, five acres in alfalfa and the rest in pasture. His most recent purchases were six acres in the Sespe canyon in 1914 and twenty-two acres on the east side of the Sespe Creek adjoining other holdings of his, and an apiary located in Castaic Canyon in Los Angeles County. Mr. Goodenough served as a member of the board of city trustees of Santa Paula from 1910 to 1916, two years of the time as chairman of the board. He was supervisor of roads at Fillmore from 1903 to 1906. He is a director of the Fillmore Irrigation Company and with the exception of two years has been on the board since 1896. He was also one of the first stockholders of the first newspaper published at Fillmore. Mr. Goodenough is a republican, and as a Presbyterian, he was an elder in the First Presbyterian Church recommended him as its delegate to the Santa Barbara Presbytery, which body elected him to act as delegate in behalf of the Fillmore Church to the General Assembly held in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1906. Fraternally Mr. Goodenough is a member of the Woodmen of the World. In Ventura County February 13, 1890, he married Miss Mattie Akers. Mrs. Goodenough is a native of Utah, where she was born while her parents were on their way to California over the ox team route. Her mother, Mrs. Sarah Akers is still living in Santa Paula, enjoying a vigorous old age. John Akers, her father, came to Ventura in 1868 and took up government land where the Sespe Avenue now runs. This land was later surveyed into the More Grant, and Mr. Akers with many other settlers was dispossessed of his holdings. He then moved down to the Orchard Ranch, where he lived two years, and then bought land in the Sespe, which he conducted as a farm and stock ranch until his death on May 6, 1885. He was one of the first white settlers in Ventura County. Mr. and Mrs. Goodenough have one son, Paul, aged twenty-two, who is a successful young rancher in Ventura County. In 1913 at Bardsdale he married Rosabel Mayhew, a daughter of M. R. Mayhew of Bardsdale. They are the parents of an infant son, Dwight, the only grandchild of Mr. and Mrs. Goodenough.