Romaine Vinton Goddard

Romaine Vinton Goddard, Baroness von Overbeck ( – ) was an American woman who married the German diplomat Gustav von Overbeck. She was the first American woman to become a maharani, of the territory of Sabah in present-day Malaysia.

Early life Romaine Vinton Goddard was born in Ohio, one of two children of Daniel Convers Goddard, deputy secretary of the Interior, and poet and novelist Madeleine Vinton. Goddard died when his daughter was three years old and his widow and her two children moved to Washington, D.C. In 1865, Madeleine Goddard married Admiral John A. Dahlgren. The exact nature of their relationship is unknown as only his letters to her are known to exist, and not any responses she may have written. Her mother's novel A Washington Winter (1893) contains a sub-plot which was likely inspired by Bülow’s pursuit of Goddard.