Benjamin Goodrich

Benjamin Franklin Goodrich (November 4, 1841 – August 3, 1888) was an American industrialist in the rubber industry and founder of the B.F. Goodrich Company.

Early life Goodrich was born in the farming town of Ripley, New York, on November 4, 1841. He was a son of Anson Goodrich (1792–1847) and Susannah (née Dinsmoor) Goodrich (born 1799). Orphaned at the age of eight, he was raised by his uncle.

He received his M.D. from Cleveland Medical College (now Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine) in 1861, studied surgery at the University of Pennsylvania in 1863 and served as a battlefront surgeon for the Union Army in the Civil War with the rank of captain. After a few years in a struggling medical practice, he went to work in Pennsylvania's oilfields and became a real estate speculator.

The brand name BFGoodrich now appears on tires made by Michelin, which bought the Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Company in 1994.

Personal life

On November 4, 1869, Goodrich was married to Mary Elizabeth Marvin (1841–1907), a daughter of U.S. Representative Richard Pratt Marvin and Isabella (née Newland) Marvin. Her brother, Selden E. Marvin, served as Adjutant General of New York. Her uncle, William Marvin, was a United States federal judge and the 7th Governor of Florida. Together, Mary and Benjamin were the parents of:

Charles Cross Goodrich (1871–1932), who was a Goodrich chemist and member of the Maine Legislature. Richard Marvin Goodrich (1872–1872), who died in infancy. Isabella Goodrich Breckinridge (1874–1961), who married John Cabell Breckinridge II (1870–1941), a grandson of John C. Breckinridge (the former Vice President of the United States under James Buchanan, a Confederate general and Confederate Secretary of War). David Marvin Goodrich (1876–1950), who became a Goodrich executive. He married Ruth Williams Pruyn, a daughter of banker Robert C. Pruyn in 1903. They divorced and in 1936 he married Beatrice (née Morgan) Pruyn, daughter of William Fellowes Morgan Sr. and the ex-wife of his first wife's brother.

Goodrich died on August 3, 1888, in Manitou Springs, Colorado, where he had been in hopes of improving his health. He was buried in at Lake View Cemetery in Jamestown, New York. After his death, his wife hired architect Guy Lowell in 1905 to design a 23-room mansion known as River House in York, Maine. His widow died in April 1907.

Descendants Through his daughter Isabella, he was a grandfather of Marvin Breckinridge Patterson, the photojournalist, cinematographer, and philanthropist, who married diplomat Jefferson Patterson.