F. Norton Goddard

Captain Frederick Norton Goddard (1861 – May 28, 1905) was a Republican Party politician from New York City. He was an anti-poverty advocate and an anti-gambling advocate.

Biography

He was born in 1861 in New York City to J. W. Goddard, and he had a brother, Warren Goddard.[1] He was a descendent of the first wagon master general of the Army under the command of George Washington, John Goddard of Brookline, Massachusetts.

He attended the Anthon grammar school and then Harvard University, graduating in 1882. He then joined his father's business, J. W. Goddard and Sons. He married Alice Grenville Winthrop on November 22, 1898 in Manhattan.[1]

After the death of his father he formed the Civic Club and became an anti-gambling advocate trying to eliminate the numbers game.[1]

In November 1901 he worked to get Albert J. Adams, the policy king incarcerated.[1]

He died on May 28, 1905 at 9:30 am in Litchfield, Connecticut.[1][2]

Legacy

He dedicated his adult life to fighting vice and corruption. Though he and his brother Warren Goddard continued to operate J.W. Goddard & Sons (a leading purveyor of tailors' trimmings), Goddard's most notable accomplishment was rooting out the policy racket (an early form of the numbers game) in New York City. Near the time of his early death, Goddard had succeeded in shaming the Western Union company out of its active cooperation with wire houses that allowed illegal off-track betting. Today's OTB parlors are the legalized progeny of the former wire houses, immortalized in the movie The Sting.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "F. Norton Goddard Dies at His Country Home. Civic Leader a Victim of Brain Hemorrhage. Wealthy, He Moved to Tenement District and Took Up Cause of Poor. Stamped Out Policy". New York Times. May 29, 1905. F. Norton Goddard of New York died suddenly to-day at his country home here. An attack of brain hemorrhage following several weeks of rheumatism and nervous prostration was the cause of his death. ...
  2. ↑ "Unselfish Wealth -- The 1899 Civic Club - 243 East 34th Street".
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