Goodrich: An Office-Holding Family 



279 



possible of the data concerning the 

 female branches published in other 

 genealogies. It is a matter of good 

 fortune that through the cooperation of 

 members of this family who are in- 

 terested in genealogy and through 

 the assistance of town clerks in the 

 study of their records, I was enabled 

 to obtain fairly complete data in regard 

 to this family. 



The recent history of the family is of 

 some interest. After the Revolution 

 in which at least one son and four 

 grandchildren of the founder were 

 engaged, several descendants migrated 

 from Massachusetts to Maine, New 

 Hampshire and Vermont. It will be 

 remembered that the founder helped 

 incorporate a Massachusetts town. A 

 grandson was influential in bringing 

 about the incorporation of a town in 

 Maine of which he was one of the first 

 settlers. Between 1830 and 1860, many 

 members of the family went west. 

 Eighteen members of the family are 

 known to have served in the Civil War. 

 Of these, eight were killed — all young 

 men of promise including a young sur- 

 geon and a captain. After the Civil 

 War the number of emigrants was 

 greatly increased, until now the descend- 

 ants of the family are to be found in 

 nearly every northern State. 



There is no evidence to show that 

 this family is superior to others of 

 similar composition. Doubtless other 

 families might in some cases show the 

 inheritance of the same . traits and 

 possess a correspondingly large number 

 of public officers. The accompanying 

 tables show the amount of public service 

 performed by this family: 



In this table (I), the per cent of 

 members holding public office is .shown 

 to have decreased from generation to 

 generation. I am not certain as to the 

 true explanation of this fact. While it 

 must be largely due to the increasing 

 size of the generations, there may be 

 genetic factors involved. It seems pos- 

 sible that the members of the second 

 generation inherited from both parents 

 certain traits not particularly strong 

 in themselves, but which by combina- 

 tion produced a strong group of trans- 

 missible characteristics made manifest 

 by office-holding; and that this group 

 of traits has in the successive genera- 

 tions been made weaker and weaker by 

 the introduction of inherited traits of 

 an opposite nature. The small number 

 of individuals recorded in the seventh 

 generation is due to the fact that this 

 generation is too young to have many 

 members which have reached maturity. 



An interesting thing to be noted in 

 the second table is the decrease in 

 the number of selectmen and town 

 clerks and a corresponding increase in 

 the number of teachers and physicians 

 in the younger generations. This is 

 suggestive, but the figures are hardly 

 sufficient to warrant a general con- 

 clusion. The large ntimber of minor 

 officers does not indicate a preference 

 for that kind of ofhce, because a very 

 large number of those who filled minor 

 offices afterward filled more important 

 ones. The number of female teachers 

 is additional to the number of public 

 officers, all of whom are males. It is 

 obvious that the same individual fre- 

 quently held several offices, at the same 

 or different times. 



Table I. — Public Life 



