Goodnow House, As I Saw It

Isaac Goodnow, a teacher from NJ, hopped a train and headed out west to join up with fellow abolitionists to implement a 'legal' vote on whether Kansas should be a slave state or not.

The Goodnows settled in and Isaac established a Christian college nearby, that he struggle to get recognized as a state college. Through a string of events, votes, and opposition from Lawrence, KS and others who felt entitled to the state college location, Kansas did eventually end up with K-State, rich in it's own history. See Kansas State Historical Society, and Riley County Historical Museum.


Many historical sites back home, though well maintained and run, do not allow photography (such is the case with our Dr. Samuel Mudd House), however the sites in and around K-State are camera friendly, without flash of course. This is my new favorite way to play with the manual settings and practice in low-light situations.

We enter through the back door, the original portion of the single-story, extremely intimate house.
Here is explained that the red brick clashing with the native stone. After the extension and upstairs had been added, Mrs. Goodnow required a window in the upstairs room, and the chimney was fashioned around the window.

In fact, the restoration of the house, and pulling down of plaster, found a stove pipe in every room, so the home wasn't for lack of warmth.
Mrs. Goodnow's room with a view also had a pipe in the wall that had been scorched black, and Isaac's diary recounted a fire in that room at one point. Curved brick chimneys, probably not the easiest to maintain.

The original portion of the house, minus where used to be a partitioning wall.

Other rooms throughout the house:

Isaac, a teacher of science, was into his nic-nacs, and they're still in the house. I saw some familiar fossils, being from the same coast.

Isaac's sister-in law had come to stay with them with her two small daughters, but not long after had an untimely passing, and the older of the girls went to her father, and the youngest, Harriet, stayed in the house until her own passing. It was Harriet, and her friend who had come to live with her in later yrs, who decided to pass the house into the Historical Society's care.

 My favorite fun fact was the bit about the iron fence. It was the popular thing to have the iron fencing around houses and property, and during this time, Harriet I think it was, had heard of a horse that had fallen over the iron spikes and it had been pretty gruesome. So when it came to their own addition, they had the  blacksmith bend the tips into equal arches.

Harriet also housed University students in the grey shed to the rear of the house, as a source of income in her later years in the house.

I did not get to see the inside of the stone shed, which was equally as charming.

That's really it. This was a spur-of-the-moment thing, so next time, maybe I'll actually obtain information and put it in an essay form. Maybe.