GOODWIN, THOMAS AIKEN: 1818-1906.
The son of one of Indiana's early settlers, Thomas Aiken Goodwin was born in Brookville, Ind., Nov. 2, 1818. During his youth he worked on the farm in summer and attended country schools in winter. He was the first student at Indiana Asbury (now De Pauw) University and was in its first graduating class in 1840. On Sept. 13, 1842, he married Content L. Craft.
Following his graduation he was ordained by the Indiana Methodist Conference and was in pastoral work until 1844 when he opened the Madison Female College. In 1853 he left teaching to edit the INDIANA AMERICAN, a Whig paper at Brookville, which he turned into a vigorous anti-slavery and temperance journal. While editing his paper he continued to preach, delivering about one hundred sermons a year for more than twenty years and doing his work without remuneration in the form of salary or payment for traveling expenses.
In 1857 he moved the paper to Indianapolis and continued to edit it until ill health forced his retirement to the farm. He continued to write, however, after his retirement and contributed voluminously to magazines and religious periodicals. He also wrote frequent letters to newspapers–especially the Indianapolis JOURNAL–using the signature U. L. C. Besides his work as an abolitionist, he was a temperance radical and championed a campaign for the introduction of theological curricula into colleges.
At one time–following the publication of The Mode of Man's Immortality–he was tried for heresy by the Methodist Church, but the case was dropped, and he continued to be a member of the church all of his life. Early sources refer to him as "Parson Goodwin," evidently the name by which he was usually known. He died in Indianapolis on June 19, 1906.
Information from Dunn–Indiana and Indianans, Vol. II; Representative Men of Indiana, Vol. I; De Pauw University's Alumnal Record, 1920; and the Indianapolis Public Library.
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… What Then?
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