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Note: Baptized "Benjamin Gutman" August 5, 1855 at St. Paul's Union Lutheran and Reformed Church, Numidia, Columbia County, Pennsylvania, parents William Gutman and Rosina (Ruthana or Rosanna LeVan) Gutman, sponsors Joseph and Katharina Leiby. (1)
Buried at Irish Valley Summit Cemetery, Shamokin Township, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, year of death 1932, year of birth 1855. (2)
He was a circuit preacher and revivalist. "During his years of service Brother Goodman conducted many successful revival meetings and supervised the erection of three new churches, the last of which is the handsome church building at Clark's Grove in Irish Valley, which stands as a memorial to his many years of faithful service, nearly one third of which was spent in the Shamokin circuit. Brother Goodman was a man of most congenial disposition and exceptionally fine personality. He was a sincere worker in the cause of Christ, always working for the interests of the church he loved so well. He enjoyed an unusually wide acquaintanceship and was beloved by all who knew him." (3)
His favorite hymn was "Will the Circle be Unbroken". Every year his descendents sing this hymn at the reunion at the Clark's Grove church.
The denonimation within which Reverend B. F. Goodman served as a clergyman was the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. Following is a brief account of the history of this denomination:
- "As The Methodist Episcopal Church was in its infancy, two other churches were being formed. In their earliest years they were composed almost entirely of German-speaking people. The first was founded by Philip William Otterbein (1726-1813) and Martin Boehm (1725-1812). Otterbein, a German Reformed pastor, and Boehm, a Mennonite, preached an evangelical message and experience similar to the Methodists. In 1800 their followers formally organized the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. A second church, The Evangelical Association, was begun by Jacob Albright (1759-1808), a Lutheran farmer and tilemaker in eastern Pennsylvania who had been converted and nurtured under Methodist teaching. The Evangelical Association was officially organized in 1803. These two churches were to unite with each other in 1946 and with The Methodist Church in 1968 to form The United Methodist Church." (4)
"While engaged in preparation for service in the ministry Reverend Goodman was employed in and about the mines at Centralia and in that locality and it was not until he attained the age of 27 he had completed his religious studies and became a minister of the gospel in the United Brethren faith and at which time he was admitted to the East Pennsylvania Conference. During his fifty years of service in the ministry, he served the Port Treverton, Catawissa, Lykens Valley, Tremont, Elizabethville, Catawissa and Shamokin Valley circuits serving two terms in charge of the Irish Valley and Ash Grove churches. He retired from the active ministry September 29, 1932, to spend the remainder of his days on his own small farm near the church he had served so faithfully over a long period of years. He died at the home of his son, Harvey Goodman, of Irish Valley, where he was assisting in the evening chores about the farm. Reverend Goodman had been a familiar figure up and down the nearby rural valleys and in the city of Shamokin for many years. A lover of spirited horses and a devout disciple of sports for physical benefits, the lamented minister was remembered as having driven horses of fiery temperament with the ease of the average driver evidenced in driving more docile animals. He was considered an expert horseman and it was in his trips by carriage that he kept in fine physical condition." He was buried in the Summit Baptist cemetery, in Irish Valley. Since, his wife, Mary Ann Harris, and many of his descendents have been buried nearby. (5)
"The missionary endeavors by the United Brethren in Irish Valley resulted in the organization of a class, about 1850, in an old school house known as Zimmerman's, situated on the valley road, about five miles from Shamokin. When the first church building was erected is not known. A second building was dedicated September 17, 1879. There was a proposal, in the year 1890, to erect a new building. The structure, however, was not torn down, but so greatly remodeled, that one might say it was almost entirely rebuilt. After this building had been in use for nearly forty years, the need for a new house of worship was felt. Steps were taken to that end, and the cornerstone was laid, November 10, 1929, by conference superintendent, Dr. S.C. Enck. By spring of the following year the very substantial and beautiful temple at Clark's Grove was completed. Bishop G.D. Batdorf officiated at the dedicatory services March 30, 1930. This was a great accomplishment on the part of a congregation of one hundred and twenty-four members. The Reverend Benjamin F. Goodman, one of the most beloved ministers of the Conference, led the congregation in this enterprise. He completed a five year pastorate on the Shamokin Circuit in 1932, having previously served the same circuit nine years, 1898-1907. He had two terms on the Catawissa Circuit: 1892-98 and 1911-15. Altogether he gave twenty-five years to the active ministry in the Northumberland-Columbia area. He was a native of the region. The Reverend Goodman received quarterly conference license in 1882, annual license in 1884, and was ordained in 1891; and served forty three years in active work. The conference treasurer used to remark that, wherever Reverend Goodman was stationed, you could expect the conference assessments to come in, in full. Brother and sister Goodman scattered sunshine wherever they went. They sleep their last sleep in the Summit Hill Cemetery, Irish Valley, awaiting the resurrection call." (6)
Sources:
1. St. Paul's Union Lutheran and Reformed Church Records, Numidia, Columbia County, Pennsylvania, LDS Film #1312860
2. Northumberland County Historical Society, records of Cemetery 32 - Irish Valley Baptist (Summit) Church, LR49033, Shamokin Township, June 30, 1978
3. Article written by H. V. Behney, transcribed from some hand written notes taken from a newspaper clipping and returned to Harvey Goodman, grandson of Rev. B. F. Goodman
4. http://www.umc.org/churchlibrary/discipline/history/roots.htm, March 4, 1999
5. Shamokin Dispatch newspaper for Saturday, December 9, 1932
6. "History of the East Pennsylvania Conference of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ" by Phares Brubaker Gibble, 1951, Otterbein Press, Dayton, Ohio, photocopies of pages 351-353
7. "The LeVan Family By Warren Patten Coon, The genealogical record, beginning in 1650 of the descendents of: Daniel LeVan and Marie Beau, Huguenots, natives of Picardy, France, who settled in Amsterdam, Holland", typescript compiled in 1964 by Mary Goodman Signor (Mrs. Howard Signor) to include Goodman descendents, 13 pages, unpublished
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