Arthur Goodenough - poet & farmer

Research & Production

Audio Production, Research & Narration: SPECIAL STUDENT EDITION

Brattleboro Historical Society/ Brattleboro Area Middle School students with Joe Rivers

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About

Arthur Goodenough was born in 1871 and his first published poem appeared when he was 14 years old. He spent his entire life on the family farm in West Brattleboro and, as an amateur poet, wrote thousands of stanzas. In 1931, he wrote to newspapers throughout Vermont to oppose a sterilization bill being proposed by the governor of Vermont. He died at the age of 64 and is buried in the West Brattleboro Cemetery on Mather Road.

Upon his death, the Burlington Free Press wrote, "The death of Arthur H. Goodenough of West Brattleboro will bring sorrow to thousands of people who came to know him and love him through his poetry. For half a century he had been writing verse and had produced thousands of poems, a large number of which were published in newspapers, magazines and in several anthologies ... Nearly all his lines had a rhythm and a swing which made easy and delightful reading. He was a native of Brattleboro and seldom left his small farm, but his poetic thoughts were wafted to the four corners of the globe. No monument of marble or granite may ever be erected in his memory, but he has left behind him an earthly record written in gems of thought."