Harvey Burdette Goodwin

**Harvey Burdette Goodwin** (November 30, 1845 - November 30, 1929) was the President of the Goodwin Brothers Pottery Company in Elmwood, West Hartford, Connecticut. His brothers, Wilbur E. Goodwin and Newell E. Goodwin, were his assisting officers. He was a lifelong resident of Elmwood and the son of the founder of the pottery business, Harvey Goodwin, as well as the husband of Anne Bramley. Following the death of his brothers and a disastrous fire to the pottery factory in 1908, the manufacture of pottery was discontinued. He became associated with his son, Wallace B. Goodwin, in the real estate and insurance business.

Goodwin was a direct descendant of Ozias Goodwin, one of the founders of Hartford from Massachusetts. He was also a direct descendant of John Webster, one of the early colonial governors of Connecticut. As a staunch Republican interested in politics, he was a member of Wyllys Lodge, No. 99 of West Hartford and a member of the Connecticut Historical Society in November 1905.

## Early Life and Career

Harvey Burdette Goodwin, son of Harvey Goodwin and Frances Adelia Elmore, was born on November 30, 1845 in Elmwood. He was educated in the public schools of West Hartford and Hartford until he turned 18 in 1863. He began working in his father's pottery during his boyhood and continued in the same line of business when his father couldn't continue its management in the early part of the 1870's. He witnessed the expansion of the plant in the 1860's with the addition of new employees and the construction of a new three-story building near the railroad.

Between 1870 and 1872, Harvey Burdette Goodwin took over the company with his two brothers from his father, Harvey Goodwin, who had officially started the company in 1832 with the manufacture of flower pots. When he and his brothers took over the land east of the railroad, they bought the property on the west side as well, south of New Britain Avenue, an area that contained an inexhaustible supply of clay. By December 1892, the company employed 75 people steadily. Additions in 1893 to the plant and the putting in of new machinery, principally the inventions of the officers of the company, increased the capacity of the work, making them one of the most equipped plants in the country at the time.

On May 9, 1904, he was chosen as a wood inspector by a meeting of the West Hartford selectmen. In July 1904, he deeded seven acres on New Britain Avenue to the Whitlock Coil Pipe Company. In 1908, a devastating fire destroyed the pottery factory, gutting the complex and wiping out the business completely. The pottery business was discontinued, save for individual orders.

In mid-July 1916, Goodwin showed up for the construction of sewer accommodations to the Abbott Ball Company's plant and the new buildings developed around it adjacent to the railroad.

## Personal Life and Death

He married Anne Bramley on June 10, 1885. She born in Alfreton, Derbyshire, England on October 4, 1862, the daughter of John B. Bramley and Martha Jepson. The couple moved into their immense home on New Britain Avenue across from Newington Road in Elmwood, West Hartford. Between 1886 and 1899, the couple had five children.

In the late July 1896, three years before the birth of their last child, Shirley, Goodwin took his family to Madison, Connecticut; they returned back to Elmwood on August 6, 1896 after a two-week stay.

On November 30, 1929, Goodwin, a lifelong resident of Elmwood, died at his home on Burgoyne Street after an illness of several weeks. His death occurred on his eighty-fourth birthday anniversary, having been born in Elmwood. Almost up to his last illness, he had enjoyed good health and was associated with his son, Wallace, in the real estate and insurance business.

### **Children**

* Frances Catherine Goodwin - m. Robert P. Matatall
* Wallace B. Goodwin - m. Lulu Cadwell
* Harvey Goodwin - m. Helen Case
* Margaret Argyle Goodwin - m. Richard C. Maercklein
* Shirley Bramley Goodwin - unmarried.