Chauncey Enoch Goodrich (1801 - 1864)

Born 19 Sep 1801 in Troy, Rensselaer, New York, United States

Ancestors

Died 11 May 1864 at age 62 in Utica, Oneida, New York, United States

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Biography

Chauncey Enoch Goodrich. ^[1]

Born 19 SEP 1801. ^[2]

Died 11 MAY 1864. ^[3]

Residence Utica, New York. ^[4]

Source: GED file graciously provided to Whitney Rapp on 10/18/17 by Goodrich Family Association (http://www.goodrichfamilyassoc.org) for upload to WikiTree.

Marriage Husband Chauncey Enoch Goodrich. Wife Margaret Tracy. Child: Anna Goodrich. Child: Cornelia F. Goodrich. Child: Susan Goodrich. Child: Rachel Tracy Goodrich. Marriage 10 APR 1830. ^[5]

Husband Enoch Goodrich. Wife Rebecca Gale. Child: Betsey Goodrich. Child: Henry Smith Goodrich. Child: Josiah B. Goodrich. Child: Sarah Goodrich. Child: Samuel Goodrich. Child: Charles Goodrich. Child: Chauncey Enoch Goodrich. Child: Rebecca Goodrich. Child: Hannah Goodrich. Marriage 01 JAN 1786. ^[6]

Episcopal minister from Utica, New York who developed blight-resistant potato varieties, including the Calico, Cuzco, Early Goodrich, and the Garnet Chili.

"CHAUNCEY ENOCH GOODRICH was born September 19, 1801 in what was then the eastern part of Troy, Rensselaer County, NY, now called Brunswick. He was the youngest son of Dr. Enoch Goodrich and Rebecca Gale. Enoch Goodrich studied medicine in Stanford, Dutchess County, NY, where he married Rebecca Gale. They subsequently moved to Troy, NY, where Chauncey Enoch Goodrich was born, the seventh of nine children. In the early part of 1806 Dr. Enoch Goodrich moved to Elbridge, Onondaga County, New York. His parents both died soon after the move and Chauncey went to live with his uncle by marriage, Colonel Nathan Beckwith, of Rhinebeck, New York. He lived here until the age of fourteen. After informal studies in Classics as preparation for a career in the ministry he entered the junior class at Union College in Schenectady. He graduated from Union College in 1825 and entered Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey. He graduated from the seminary in 1828, was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Troy in the fall of 1828, and began teaching at the Oneida Institute, a manual labor school at Whitesboro, NY. In 1830 he was ordained by the Oneida Presbytery and settled as pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Salisbury, Herkimer County. In May of the same year he married Margaret Tracy, daughter of William Gedney Tracy, of Whitesboro, NY and for twelve years he worked as a pastor, first in Salisbury, Herkimer County, then in Butternuts and Fly Creek, Otsego County, in Winfield, Herkimer County, and finally in Holland Patent, Oneida County. During these twelve years he and his wife had four children: Anna, Cornelia, Susan, and Rachel. In 1841 his labors as a pastor terminated and he moved to Utica, NY where he started a market garden in 1843. Not content with the ordinary routine of sowing and reaping, he tried various experiments in raising peaches, grapes, sweet potatoes, and other fruits and plants not previously grown in the cold winters and fluctuating summers of Oneida County. The accurate habit of observation, and the close research which had hitherto marked his character, led him to study attentively the habits of plants, and the effect of climate and cultivation upon them. When the potato blight of the 1840s struck he turned his attention to the restoration of this valuable plant. When the potato disease first appeared, his attention was drawn to finding its cause and an effective remedy. He began by examining the growth of the potato plant under different circumstances, and the effects of temperature and humidity on the growth of potatoes. He came to believe that the potato had become enfeebled and incapable of resisting fluctuations in weather due to the long cultivation under conditions not natural to it. He concluded that seed from tubers grown on the elevated plains of South America, where the potato originated, might be expected to produce new varieties of greater vigor to supply the place of those failing. Through his brother-in-law, Henry Tracy, he obtained a barrel of potatoes raised in Chili, obtained at Panama and brought across the Isthmus at a cost of around two hundred dollars. These potatoes allowed him to begin the series of experiments which were continued up to his death. In addition to the plants raised from the seed of the original Chili potatoes, he saved seeds of their progeny, and pursued the same system with their product. Frequently he produced tubers that were very promising for three or four years and then developed some feature which made them, in his opinion, unfit for cultivation. Only after a minimum of five years of experimentation did he consider a new potato seed safe to give to the public. The “Garnet Chili” was the only one of fifteen hundred seedlings of the year it was produced. During this same time he served as Chaplain of the New York State Lunatic Asylum in Utica, a position he held for about nineteen years. Shortly before his death, he placed his work in the hands of his friend, D. S. Heffron, Esq., of Utica, who had become fully acquainted with his views. During the early part of the winter of 1864, he devoted himself to the preparation of two valuable papers on the culture and disease of the potato, embodying all the results of his long experience and close observation, and completed these papers a few days before his death, on May 11, 1864. The sums he received from the sale of potatoes he developed never amounted to the cost of his experiments. Had his object been simply to make money, with a little business tact his “Garnet Chili” might have produced him a fortune. It was remarked at a meeting of the New York State Agricultural Society, that already at least three million dollars had been saved by the introduction of the Garnet Chili potato."^[7]

Sources

1. ↑ Source: #S2 page 80
2. ↑ Source: #S2 page 137
3. ↑ Source: #S2 page 137
4. ↑ Source: #S2 page 137
5. ↑ Source: #S2 page 137
6. ↑ Source: #S2 page 80
7. ↑ Abridged from a biographical note in the Presbyterian Historical Almanac, Volume 7, 1865.

• Source: S2 The Goodrich Family in America. A Genealogy of the Descendants of John and William Goodrich of Wethersfield, Conn., Richard Goodrich of Guilford, Conn., and William Goodridge of Watertown, Mass. Lafayette Wallace Case M.D., Author Role: Editor Publication: Fergus Printing Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1889, Second Date, 1984
• http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-nr98033472/
• https://books.google.com/books?id=ur01AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA385&lpg=PA385
• https://vegetablesofinterest.typepad.com/vegetablesofinterest/2007/08/garnet-chili-po.html
• https://www.uticaod.com/article/20141014/NEWS/141019706
• https://books.google.com/books?id=CxOdEH12awIC&pg=RA2-PA308&lpg=RA2-PA308
• https://www.rutlandherald.com/news/potato-mania-part-of-our-state-history/article_c5bb2638-e3ba-5ced-a690-0f509180095e.html