The following PDF file link contains an alphabetized list of all the people mentioned in Goodrich’s diaries. It also catalogs the dates in which their names appear and provides a brief biography. If I have misidentified anyone or if I have written inaccurate or incomplete biographies which you can help me correct, please comment in the space provided below.
Pages
- Pre-Diary
- 1859
- 1860
- 1861
- 1862
- 1863
- 1864
- 1865
- 1866
- 1867
- Post Diary
- Love Interests
- Views in the South
- People Mentioned
- Biostatistics
- Theta Delta Chi
- Death
- Civil War Novel
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Comments Welcome
This blog site is a work in progress. I expect to add material in the next few months. In the interim, I welcome your comments and, in particular, any corrections. Please inform me if I have miss-identified any of the people mentioned by Goodrich in these diary entries or letters. A comment field appears at the bottom of each page for your convenience. You may also use this field to leave me a message as all comments will be forwarded to my e-mail address.-
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September 6th, 2011 at 12:01 pm
I am researching the life of David Elwell Maxwell, oldest son of William McWhir Maxwell and Rebecca Elwell Maxwell of Bel Air, Florida. Elwell Maxwell attended school in Massachussetts so was not a student of Goodrich, but his brother Francis Oliver (“Frank”) and sister Georgia were, as were several of his cousins. You have misidentified Georgia as “George” and misidentified John Maxwell as a son of William and Rebecca. If you have additional information on the community of Bel Air or the Maxwell family that is not included in this blog I would greatly appreciate it!
September 6th, 2011 at 2:05 pm
Thank you for notifying me of the error. I have fixed the “People Mentioned” index, although you did not tell me who the parents of John Maxwell were (if not William & Rebecca). Do you happen to know? Anything I learned about the Bel-Air community I included on this blogsite while researching this diary. I’d be interested in learning more about Wm & Rebecca Maxell, however, if you care to share or point me in the right direction. I hope these diary entries were useful to you in your research. — Griff
October 9th, 2011 at 5:53 pm
I believe your John Maxwell would be John Whitner Maxwell, son of Thomas Young Maxwell and Sarah Tallulah Whitner. Thomas Young Maxwell was the younger brother of William McWhir Maxwell. Their parents were John Jackson Maxwell and Mary Ann Baker. Like William McWhir, Thomas Young was born in Bryan County Georgia at Belfast Plantation. They moved to Leon County Florida in the 1840s, along with their parents, their brothers Thomas Pray Maxwell and Daniel Brailsford Maxwell, and their sisters Matilda Harriet Maxwell and Constant Ann Baker Maxwell. Constant Ann married Oliver Sturgess Burroughs and was the mother of Eben Burroughs; Matilda Harriet married George Galphin and was the mother of John Maxwell Galphin.
Another brother, George Troupe Maxwell, was a well known physician (the rest were all planters) and moved to Tallahassee just before the war.
Rebecca Elwell Maxwell was from Massachusetts. Her father was a ships captain whose ship, The Endeavour, was the first American ship to sail through the Strait of Magellan in 1824. Rebecca was well educated and sent her oldest son, Elwell, to high school in Cambridge. He was in Masssachusetts during the time Mr. Goodrich was teaching his brother, sister and cousins. He returned to Florida to enlist in the CSA and was a celebrated war hero, serving in all of the major battles in Virginia and Georgia. His letters to his parents have been reprinted in numerous books about the war and are used by the U.S. Parks Service in educational materials. After the war Elwell went to work for the railroads. All of the Maxwell plantations failed, and William McWhir Maxwell and many of his family members followed Elwell to Fernandina Florida where he eventually became one of the most important railroad officials in the country.
Francis Oliver (“Frank”) Maxwell enlisted at 16 and died in a hospital in Richmond, Virginia soon after his 18th birthday.
October 9th, 2011 at 5:59 pm
Elwell Maxwell was with his cousin Eben Burroughs in Williamsburg and together they recovered General Ward’s body. He writes about this experience in one of his published letters. Eben married Mary Ann Chaires after the war.
Maxwell Galphin was another of Frank and Elwell Maxwell’s cousins.