Nathaniel Goodwin was born in Hartford, Connecticut, March 5, 1782, and died there May 29, 1855. He was apprenticed to a printer in Albany, and afterward became a teacher and land-surveyor. At Hartford he was for many years City treasurer and judge of probate, and was often employed in the settlement of estates, He published Descendants of Thomas Olcott (1845), and The Foote Family (1849). After his death appeared his Genealogical Notes of Some of the First Settlers of Connecticut and Massachusetts, with a memoir (1856).

           This collection consists of incoming correspondence written to Nathaniel Goodwin as well as retained copies of Goodwin’s outgoing correspondence, 1811-1855. The correspondence is almost entirely business related, involving the settlement of estate, land disputes, and other legal matters. Several letters have manuscript surveys, ranging from nearby towns in Connecticut to lands in Ohio and New York.

       The collection can be divided into three sections:

1.     Incoming Correspondence to Nathaniel Goodwin

a.     1826-1829, 9 letters, 10 pages

b.     1830-1838, 35 letters, 40 pages

c.     1840-1849, 57 letters, 69 pages

d.     1850-1855, 16 letters, 15 pages

2.     Retained Copes of Outgoing Correspondence by Nathaniel Goodwin

a.     1811, 1816, two letters, 2 pages

b.     1829, 28 letters, 44 pages

c.     1830-1837, 78 letters, 120 pages

d.     1843-1844, 11 letters 12 pages

3.     Documents, receipts, etc., pertaining to Goodwin’s tenure as Hartford City Treasurer

a.     1810-1852, 50 items

      Appletons’ Cyclopedia of American Biography, vol. II, p. 683