Excerpt from Reminiscences, Sporting and Otherwise, of Early Days in Rockford, Ill

Doct. Josiah C. Goodhue, the subject of this sketch, of whom a more extended notice is given in the body of this work, and author of the name Rock Ford, was born at Putney, Vermont in 1803, graduated at Yale Medical College and commenced the practice of his profession at St. Thomas, Upper Canada, in 1824, where he was married to Catherine Dunn. He migrated to Chicago in 1832, and was prominent in the affairs of that city until he came to Rockford to reside in 1838. Doct. Goodhue was one of the founders of what afterwards became Rush Medical College at Chicago, and was elected alderman of the first ward at the first election under city organization in March 1837. His daughter, Mrs. C. F. Holland, now of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who has heard him relate the incident of naming the town, supplies me with these facts.

During the summer of 1835, DanielS. Haight and Germanicus Kent, then residing at what is now Rockford, William H. Gilman of Belvidere, John P. Chapin and Ebenezer Peck of Chicago, and Stephen Edgel, afterwards of St. Louis, met at the office of Doct. Goodhue on Lake street in Chicago, to name the claim, or mill privilege, which they hoped would at some time in the future become a town. All these were interested in the claim, as was Luther O. Crocker, for many years after a citizen of Freeport, Illinois. Mrs. Kent had suggested "Midway" as an appropriate title, it being nearly equidistant from Chicago and Galena, which name none of the interested parties approved. Various names were suggested and rejected, until Doct. Goodhue said "Why not call it Rock Ford, from the splendid rockbottom ford on the river there?" It seemed an inspiration, and was adopted unanimously.

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