Benjamin Briggs Goodrich (1799-1860)

    Ben Goodrich, signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, son of John Goodrich, was born in Brunswick County, Virginia, on February 24, 1799. After the family moved from Virginia to Tennessee, Goodrich went to Maryland, where he graduated from a medical college in Baltimore and began to practice medicine. He later practiced in Vicksburg, Mississippi; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Tallahassee, Florida; and again in Alabama, where he served one term in the state legislature. Goodrich and his brother, John Calvin Goodrich, arrived in Texas on April 30, 1834. Dr. Goodrich purchased a lot in Washington on December 16, 1835. 

    As one of the four representatives from the Municipality of Washington at the Convention of 1836 he signed the Declaration of Independence. While attending the convention he secured from each delegate present his age, place of birth, and the name of the state from which he emigrated to Texas. Goodrich married Serena Corrothers, a native of Kentucky; they were parents of nine children. Sometime after 1836 he settled near the site of present Anderson in Grimes County. He died on November 16, 1860, and was buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Anderson, where the state of Texas erected a joint monument at the graves of Goodrich and his wife in 1932. Source


Odd Fellows Cemetery
Anderson

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30° 29.261, -096° 00.299