Charles Goodrich Hamond
Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and Knox County
page 218
Hammond, Charles Goodrich, Railway Manager, was born at Bolton, Conn., June 4, 1804 spent his youth in Chenango County, N.Y., where he became Principal of the Whitesboro Seminary (in which he was partially educated), and entered mercantile life at Canandaigua; in 1834 removed to Michigan, where he held various offices, including member of the Legislature and Auditor: in 1852 completed the construction of the Michigan Central Railroad (the first line from the East) to Chicago, and took up his residence in that city. In 1855 he became Superintendent of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, but soon resigned to take a trip to Europe for the benefit of his health. Returning form Europe in 1869, he accepted the Superintendency of the Union Pacific Railroad, but was compelled to resign by failing health, later becoming Vice-President of the Pullman Palace Car Company. He was Treasurer of the Chicago Relief & Aid Society after the fire of 1871, and one of the founders of the Chicago Theological Seminary (Congregational); also President, for several years, of the Chicago Home for the Friendless. Died, April 15, 1884.
Charles G. Hammond evidently had a very successful career with the railroads. A search of Newspapers.com for an obituary found several obituaries that provide more details about his successful life.
Included in the obituary found in the April 16, 1884 issue of The Chicago Tribune were details about the Ancestry of Charles G. Hammond.
His Ancestry
Col. Hammond’s blameless private life and his eminent success and long and important public services are but another illustration that “blood will tell.” He comes of a long line of intellectual and substantial Christian people. His mother was a Goodrich — a most worthy representative of the old Connecticut family whose name she bor. To Edward Hubbard, Esq., the well-known genealogist and family historian of this city, The Tribune is indebted for the following:
Memoranda of the ancestry of Charles Goodrich Hammond — Col. Hammond was born at Bolton, Conn., June 4, 1804, and was the eldest son of Chester and Fanny (Goodrich) Hammond. His earliest ancestor of whom we have positive knowledge was Thomas Hammond, of Lavenham, Suffolk County, England, who married Rose Trippe May 14, 1573.
They had seven children, five daughters and two sons, whose baptisms are given on the parish register at Lavenham, A.D. 1574 to 1587. The two sons, William, baptized Oct. 20, 1575, and Thomas, baptized Jan. 9, 1856, emigrated to America. William settled at Watertown, Mass., where he died at the age of 87 in 1662. Thomas Jr., with his wife Elizabeth, lived at Cambridge Village (Newton), Mass., where he died Sept. 20, 1675, 200 years ago, at the patriarchal age of 89, leaving two sons and two daughters and what was then a handsome estate inventorying L1,155 16s 2d.
Thomas Hammond third, married Elizabeth daughter of Isaac Stedman, in 1662, and died of small-pox Oct. 20, 1678. They had seven children, of whom the third, Isaac, born Dec. 20, 1668 married Ann Kendrick, daughter of Elijah and Hannah (Jackson) , and had four sons and three daughters. The youngest of these, Elijah Hammond, born Oct. 7, 1711, married Oct. 13, 1732, Mary, daughter of Nathaniel Kingsbury. They, Elijah and Mary Hammond, had children — no record of the number. The eldest, Nathaniel, born Sept. 16, 1733, married for his first wife Dorothy Tucker, and for his second, Eleanor Olmsted. This Nathaniel Hammond lived in Bolton, Conn, and was the father of sixteen children — nine by his first wife Dorothy, and seven by Eleanor — of whom Charles, born Nov. 25, 1779, married oct, 18, 1801, Frances, daughter of John Goodrich, a descendent in the sixth generation from William Goodrich and Sarah Marvin, of Wethersfield, Conn., 1648, ancestor of “Peter Parley” and many other distinguished representatives of that name. Among his other ancestors may be found the names of Bacon, Coleman, Edwards, Jackson, Kendrick, Kingsbury, Stedman, Thompson and Treat — all names of honorable mention among the early settlers of New England.
