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STEPHEN CARLTON GOFF was born in Locke, New York, in 1830. His parents were Frederick Goff and Melinda Crandall. He was the third from youngest of thirteen children. When Stephen was seven years old his family left New York to settle in Cass County, Michigan (in the year Michigan became a state, 1837), at Goff Lake (obviously named by our family). Stephen's father, Frederick Goff, built a small frame house (the first frame building in Marcellus Township), then died within two years of their arrival in Michigan, leaving his widow Melinda with all of their many children and eighty acres of land that needed farming. Melinda never remarried.
A view of Goff Lake, in 1998
Frederick's son Stephen Goff (our ancestor) enlisted in the Michigan Light Artillery during the Civil War. His brother Sylvester enlisted at the same time. In 1849, in Cass County, Stephen married Angeline Arnold (not our ancestor; she was his first wife). In about 1870 (probably right after the war), Stephen and Angeline and their children moved to Deloit, in Crawford County, Iowa. Two of Stephen's brothers, Ira and Sylvester, had moved to Crawford County, Iowa before he did, Sylvester taking along their mother, Melinda Goff.
Downtown Deloit, Iowa in the 1800s
Stephen's wife, Angeline, died in Deloit, Iowa in 1870 in her early forties. In her obituary it said that she left four children, but the only children she left that we know of were: Melinda, Martha Arcana, and Frank (we think there was another child, Lewis, who was born earlier than the rest and who died at the age of six months in Michigan). Stephen arrived in Cherokee, Iowa (about 45 miles from Deloit as the crow flies) in 1870, a widower with the remaining children by his first wife. As we say, we have found mention of only three of them. In 1870 Melinda was fifteen years old, Martha Arcana was thirteen, and Frank S. was eleven (he later, it is said, went to Alaska during the Gold Rush there). Stephen's mother and his brother Sylvester were also in Cherokee County in 1870 so they may have moved there at the same time. Stephen's brother Ira and family were very much settled down in Crawford County did not move to Cherokee. Ira was an elder in the Reformed LDS church in Deloit, and he worked as a carpenter, cooper (barrel maker) and farmer, and had a brick business and a livery barn.
Reformed LDS Church, built in 1873 - Crawford County, Iowa
In Cherokee, Stephen Goff built a dirt-floor log house and soon (in early 1872) married sixteen-year-old Helen Ellis and they (Stephen and Helen) moved in and commenced to produce nine of their own children. One of those children was our direct ancestor, Eleanor Josephine Goff, born in 1883. Stephen Goff was probably not a member of the LDS church, at least after he moved to Cherokee, but he was known to be religious, and was probably a member of the Church of Christ in Cherokee, where at least two of his children were baptized.
Log house Stephen Goff built in 1870 in |
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This picture was in the newspaper in Cherokee, Iowa. We don't have the date of the article. Just below is the story that was under the picture, with no corrections made to the punctuation or etc. "This log cabin was built by Steven C. Goff early settlers here and lived in by the Goff family for several years. It is recorded that the logs were hauled from Denison, Iowa to build the cabin in 1870. It stood at the top of the Oakhill Cemetery hill, west of the city, south of the new cemetery plot. This once sturdy home, shown here in its declining years was once a familiar sight in early Iowa." |
Stephen Goff was a member of the G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic) a fellowship organization for men who had served in the Civil War. He died on January 25, 1905 and when he was buried, in the Oak Hill Cemetery that he had lived next to in the log cabin for so many years, his gravesite had a G.A.R. marker on it, which you can see below.
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Stephen Carlton Goff's gravestone
Oak Hill Cemetery, Cherokee, Iowa
Photo taken by Linda Craig