Willis GOODLETT

The following bio was taken from pages 212-213 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Gloria Riley

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

Willis Goodlett (Born January 8, 1803) married his cousin, Elizabeth E. Goodlett (Born February 8, 1813) on January 10, 1832. They were both descendants of Robert Goodlett, Sr., who came from Scotland as a very young man, married Nancy Ann Middleton in 1750, and settled in Greenville, South Carolina, where they lived for many years. Their union was blessed with eleven or twelve children, two of whom died in early childhood. In 1859, after the two older children, Robert and Elizabeth Earle, were married and had families of their own, the Goodletts made a great decision: the entire family decided to leave their homes in South Carolina to seek their fortunes in Texas. Their old friend and former neighbor, Benjamin Franklin (Frank) Montgomery, had been in the big new state since 1855, and he urged them to join him. After much writing back and forth, Frank rented a farm for Willis, and in the fall of 1859, the group left South Carolina by wagon train. Six long, weary weeks of travel passed before the Goodletts finally arrived in East Texas, just before Christmas, 1859. They had a big Christmas dinner with the Frank Montgomerys in their home about seven miles northeast of Henderson, in Rusk County, Texas, near the New Prospect Community. The next year (1860) Willis bought a farm near Henderson from Willis Grist and his wife, Dinah, on the banks of Grist Creek, and here he settled down. Soon after the Goodletts reached Rusk County, the War Between the States broke out, and the young patriots of this family rushed out to serve their country. Four of Willis’ sons—Robert, Jesse, Ben and Joe—and his son-in-law, Memory B. Lanford, enlisted in the Army. Three of them never returned. The mother of the family, Elizabeth, also died in April 1862, at the age of forty-nine years, leaving Willis with several young children to rear alone. This he managed to do very well and he lived on until November 23, 1883, when he died at the age of eight years. They are both buried in the New Prospect Cemetery near several of their children and among many of their old friends from South Carolina. The children of Willis and Elizabeth Goodlett are: Benjamin Perry Goodlett, who died as a child; Robert Marion Goodlett, who married S. N. L. Curry; Elizabeth Earle Goodlett, who married Memory B. Lanford, first, and William York, second; Jesse Hannon Goodlett, who never married; George Washington Goodlett (Joe), who married Rebecca Elizabeth Wright; Harriett Goodlett, who married William M. Melton; Martha Jane Goodlett, who married Paul Bunting Craig; Willis Benjamin Goodlett, who married Martha E. Hicks; Henry Jamison Goodlett, who married Janie Beatrice Gibson; Mary M. Goodlett, who married John Chapman, and William David Goodlett, who married Elizabeth Morris Johns. Written by Margaret Wright Brown