HENRY HILL GOODELL 



His grandfather, William Goodell, a soldier in the Re- 

 volution, one of the seven of his "kith and kin" in the 

 army, who did not have a name borrowed from the Scrip- 

 tures, was born in Maryborough, Massachusetts, July 9, 

 1757, spent most of his active life in Templeton, Massa- 

 chusetts, and died July 4, 1843, at Copley, Ohio. He had 

 a family of ten children, of whom William, the father of 

 Henry Hill, was the second child and first son. This Wil- 

 liam seems to have inherited all the pluck and grit of his 

 race. He was a man of great practical wisdom and of cour- 

 age that never failed. His father was not able to help him 

 in his ambition to acquire an education, but he contrived 

 to fit for college, to graduate at Dartmouth in 1817, to study 

 theology at Andover, and then devoted his life to the work 

 of a missionary, and for forty years worked in the Otto- 

 man Empire. Turkey was then a frontier position, and his 

 trials came not "in single spears, but in fierce battalions." 

 The enumeration of his trials and perils by the first great 

 missionary of the Christian faith to his disciples at Corinth 

 is almost equaled by those endured by William Goodell. He 

 suffered from fire and flood, from plague and pestilence, 

 from the bigotry of the Greek Church, and lived in hourly 

 expectation of an outburst of Moslem fanaticism; yet he 

 stood to his post and did his work bravely and well. 



He saw the humorous side of life and enjoyed it. His 

 humor was spontaneous and came out as oddly as a Puri- 

 tan quoted Scripture. "His sense of humor," says Dr. 

 Jessup, "was refreshing, bubbling over all on occasions 

 and sparkling even in the darkest hour of persecution and 

 tribulation." 1 Dr. Hamlin, as quoted by Dr. Jessup, says 

 1 Fifty-three Years in Syria, i, 47. 



