The Goodwin Mansion is one of the few buildings moved to Strawbery Banke because of its historical significance. Its owner, Ichabod Goodwin, served for two years as Governor of New Hampshire at the beginning of the Civil War.

The construction of the Goodwin house corresponded almost exactly with the War of 1812. It was begun in 1811, and probably took at least three years to complete. A bricklayer by the name of James Hazeltine built the house, apparently for speculative purposes. The area where the house originally stood, on upper Islington Road, was at that time developing into an exclusive residential district. Hazeltine's venture succeeded. In 1814 he sold the house for $3,000, which undoubtedly covered his cost and included a sizable profit. The dwelling changed hands once more before it was purchased in 1832 by Ichabod Goodwin.

Born in Berwick, Maine, in 1794, Goodwin came to Portsmouth at the age of fourteen to work in the counting house of Samuel Lord, a prominent ship owner and merchant. Within only a few years Goodwin was serving as supercargo aboard his employer's largest vessel. Shortly after that he took command himself of one of Lord's ships. With Goodwin, however, as with so many others in the long history of this maritime town, going to sea served mainly as a means of proving himself before moving on to more lucrative endeavors. It also was becoming a burden on his family life.

Goodwin in 1827 had married Sarah Parker Rice. Two years later, in Savannah, Ichabod wrote to Sarah of his loneliness and of his wish that she would write more often. The couple by that time had a daughter, Abigail. Not surprisingly Ichabod Goodwin in 1832 gave up the sea and became a merchant in partnership with Samuel Coues. To reflect this move upward in society Goodwin needed a substantial house. That same year he purchased this Federal mansion.

The life of Goodwin is significant for the way it illustrates the progress of the nineteenth century in Portsmouth. He began his career at sea, a tradition as old as the town itself. He left the maritime life, however, at the same time it became apparent that seaborne trade, Portsmouth's lifeblood, was in a permanent decline. Goodwin saw that transportation and trade in this small city would increasingly come to depend on a new technological development, the railroad. In the 1830s he was appointed a director of the Eastern Railway of Massachusetts and, when the line was extended north, he became president of the Eastern Railroad of New Hampshire. From 1841 to 1876 Goodwin served at the head of the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth Railroad, later to become a substantial part of the Boston and Maine.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, manufacturing became an increasingly important part of Portsmouth's economy. Again, Ichabod Goodwin was in the forefront. At mid-century he became president of the Portsmouth Steam Factory, taking over a six-story building containing 21,000 spindles and 450 looms. It employed 380 people who annually produced two-and-a-half million yards of lawn, a fine sheer cotton or linen fabric. Goodwin had a strong sense of public duty and over the years served at the head of numerous financial and benevolent organizations.

Ichabod Goodwin's greatest love, though, was politics. After serving in the state legislature during a period of nearly twenty years, he became a Whig candidate for Congress in the 1850s. The decline of the Whigs led to Goodwin's defeat, but he soon was involved in the formation of the state Republican Party. His election as Governor of New Hampshire in 1859, and again in 1860, indicates the esteem held for him throughout the state.

One of his most important acts as the state's chief executive occurred late in his second term when, following hostilities at Fort Sumter, President Lincoln sent an urgent request to the states for volunteers. Although New Hampshire's legislature was not in session, and there was no money to recruit and outfit troops, Governor Goodwin immediately appealed to banking institutions and to individuals for assistance, digging into his own pocket to set an example. The necessary funds were raised and New Hampshire shortly sent its first troops off to Washington.

Ichabod Goodwin's wife, Sarah Parker Rice Goodwin as she liked to sign herself, was like the governor, a strong and astute individual, and in her memoirs which she began writing at the age of seventy, we are treated to an intimate view of what Sarah Goodwin considered a very happy life as a child, a wife, and a mother in Portsmouth. Sensitive and warm, Sarah was no Pollyanna. As the wife of a politician, she was acutely aware of the inequalities in America's democratic system, particularly in regard to women, and she was not afraid to write about them.

The Declaration of Independence was intended to cover the whole human race. The Constitution of the United States was not intended for the men only, but for the whole people. A man's right to vote is not measured by his muscle. Women are in the majority in Massachusetts and yet a single man with a ballot in his hand outweighs them all politically. Taxation without representation was the cause of the Revolution. Women have as much interest in the organization of the government under which their children are to live as men have.

Sarah Goodwin c. 1880
In 1867 the Goodwins' daughter, Susan, married a young naval Lt. Commander, George Dewey in this house. Dewey would later gain fame by defeating the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War.

Governor Goodwin died in 1882; Sarah Goodwin in 1896. In 1963 their house, faced with destruction on its original site, was moved to Strawbery Banke for preservation. It was formally deeded to Strawbery Banke by the State of New Hampshire in 1970.

Architecturally the Goodwin Mansion bears numerous traces of the Governor's occupancy. The front Ionic portico probably dates from his purchase of the mansion in 1832, as may the Doric side porch. The laurel wreaths on the portico are similar to those carved by John Bellamy for the 1836 Portsmouth Courthouse (now demolished), a typical Greek Revival building. Most fireplaces retain the late Greek Revival or early Victorian marble mantelpieces and cast iron grates installed by Goodwin. These were built to burn coal rather than wood (usually cannel coal, a light, soft, almost ash-free fuel), and they were closed in hot weather.

The most thoroughly Victorian room architecturally is the best parlor, to the left of the front door. This is the only room in the house which contains a plaster ceiling rosette, installed for a gas chandelier, probably shortly after 1850; when illuminating gas was first introduced into the city by the Portsmouth Gas Light Company, of which Goodwin later became President. The rest of the house retains the original Federal period wainscoting, window and door trim, and cornices, but in the best parlor only the cornice survives unaltered. The white marble fireplace bears anthemion ornaments, derived from the honeysuckle which first appeared in America in Greek Revival work, and it probably pre-dates the room's altered woodwork. The base board is typical of the Victorian era, and the pilasters which frame the windows and door bear capitals which are equally characteristic of the Civil War period. They have two elements: three acanthus leaves at the bottom, and five water leaves, reminiscent of Egyptian work, above. Such capitals are widely found in Victorian work in Portsmouth, often capping columns which support house porticos. They seem to have been copied almost directly from the late Corinthian order of the Tower of the Winds in Athens, first illustrated in Stuart and Revett's Antiquities of Athens in 1762.

Apart from the alterations made by Governor Goodwin, the house retains numerous original Federal period features. Many of the best of these may be seen in the front hallway, the focal point of which is the graceful spiral stairway The hall is lighted by a beautiful fanlight over the door, and its cornice is enriched by simplified mutules and by cable moldings.

Governor Goodwin's residence is furnished with items of various ages and qualities, to recreate as closely as possible the appearance of the house when he lived in it. Some of the pieces are Victorian; others, which had been in the family many years, are much older. The overall image is one of tradition, wealth, and elegance, an image that Ichabod Goodwin, who rose from obscurity to become one of the most prominent men in the community and the state, strove to present.