She was married on 13 October 1811 in Locke, in Cayuga County, New York (in the part which in 1831 became Plato, NY and the next year changed to Summer Hill, NY) to FREDERICK GOFF, son of Captain John Goffe/Goff (he's the one who changed the spelling from "Goffe" to "Goff," in about 1799) and Elizabeth Coston. The Justice of the Peace who married Frederick and Melinda was Frederick's brother-in-law, Martin Barber. Frederick Goff served in Captain Martin Barber's company in the War of 1812.

According to an 1879 history of Summer Hill, which no matter what it was called at the time was where our ancestors were married, "the surface is rolling and has an elevation of 1,000 to 1,100 feet ....The general level is only broken to any considerable extent by the valley of Fall Brook, which flows south through the east part, 300 to 400 feet below the summits of the hills, and is the only stream of any importance ..... Summer Hill Lake, or Locke Pond, by which name it is also called, is a rather pretty sheet of water, threefourths of a mile long by one-half of a mile wide. The shores are low [and] rise gradually to the highlands upon the east and west. It lies in the north-east part of the town, and dishcarges its waters in Fall Brook. It is moderately well stocked with fish, chiefly bass. Formerly salmon trout were abundant in its waters.

"The soil is a clay loam, admirably adapted to grazing, to which it is, and has been for a great many years, almost exclusively applied. Dairying is the chief, almost only, occupation of the inhabitants. The full capacity of the town is utilized and has been for many years in grazing cattle for dairy purposes....

"The first settlement was made in 1797 ..... Among the early settlers was Nathaniel Fillmore, father of Ex-President Millard Fillmore, the latter of whom was born in this town January 7th, 1800 ..... James Robinson, who was a noted wolf hunter when there was a bounty of $40 apiece offered for their destruction, settled in the north part of the town about 1800 ..... Smith Covert came in from Genoa as early as 1805 .... He came to Genoa with an ox-cart, the wheels of which were made of hewed logs pinned together with wooden pins." (And so on. These are just some highlights, to give you an idea of what it was like at the time Frederick Goff and Melinda Crandall were married there. The town - which now has a nudist colony - is still very small, and it's now called Summerhill, New York.)

Melinda and her husband (Frederick Goff) and children moved from New York to Cass County in southwestern Michigan in 1837. One of their children was our direct ancestor, Stephen Goff, who was about seven years old at the time they made the move. Melinda's husband, Frederick, died the following year in Michigan, at the age of fifty-one.

Melinda moved with her son Sylvester from Cass County, Michigan to Iowa in about 1867, settling at first in Deloit in Crawford County, where Sylvester's brother Ira was already living. Soon after, in 1870, Stephen Goff and his first wife followed them to Iowa, settling first in Crawford County, but moving within the year to Cherokee County after his wife died.

Melinda, along with her son Sylvester and family also moved to Cherokee County at that time.

Melinda moved west again, with her son Sylvester and his family, in about 1875 when she was around 80 years of age. They settled in Nebraska, where Melinda died at some time between 1877 and 1880.

As those who have a copy of our "Goffe Book" know, we can go much further back with this family (and have many more details, including about extended family), but this little "history" is limited to only those in the family (specificially our direct ancestors and their immediate families) who lived at some time in Iowa, and were born by the year 1900.

...OUR IOWA FAMILY
...Preface
...Introduction
...Table of Contents
...Links to All Maps
...Questions & Answers