Francis Robert Goulding

Background

Francis Robert Goulding was born on 28 September 1810, in Midway, Liberty County, Georgia, a community settled by New England Puritans transplanted to South Carolina in 1693 and to Georgia in 1752.

His father, Thomas Goulding, educated in New Haven, was a Presbyterian clergyman and theologian.

His mother, Ann Holbrook, of Wolcott, Connecticut, was a daughter of Nathan Holbrook, a Revolutionary patriot.

Education

Francis spent his early childhood partly at Midway and partly at Savannah, but at twelve went with his family to live in Lexington.

At nineteen, he was graduated from the state university and at twenty-two from the Theological Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina, of which his father was president.

Career

Goulding preached in Sumter County, South Carolina, in Greensboro and Washington, Georgia. He became an agent of the American Bible Society, and preached again, in Eatonton and (1843 - 51) in Bath, Georgia.

While in Eatonton in 1842, he constructed, four years before Howe’s invention was patented, the sewing machine, but, while satisfied of its usefulness, made no application for a patent, laying the device aside, he said, in order that he might attend “to weightier duties”.

In 1844, he published a story of devout juvenility called Little Josephine, and in 1852, after countless revisions, Robert and Harold later entitled The Young Marooners on the Florida Coast.

Before 1869 the book is said to have gone through six editions in England, in 1890 it was translated into French, and by 1919, when it was last published, it had gone through at least ten editions in the United States.

In 1853, he moved to Kingston, Georgia, opened a school for boys, and began work on a volume about the instinct of birds and beasts.

During the Civil War, he served unofficially, as a chaplain, and then, his library having been burned by Union troops, he went to Macon, where he taught a school for girls, compiled a Soldiers Hymn Book, and wrote a series of articles called “Self Helps and Practical Hints for the Camp, the Forest, and the Sea. ”

After the war, impoverished and unable to preach because of a throat affection, he turned to writing. Marooner’s Island, published serially in 1867 and in book form in 1869, went through as many as three editions, but nothing else that he wrote was widely popular.

By 1869, he was living in the hill country at Roswell, Georgia, genial, hard put for money, and tortured by asthma. It was here that death came to him.

Achievements

• Goulding was the founder and first president of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Columbia. He is best Known as the author of the popular juvenile novel, "The Young Marooners" and similar books, Francis R. Goulding like his father achieved eminence in the pulpit, filling many pastorates. In 1842, while visiting near Eatonton, he conceived the idea for a machine for sewing. While pastor of the Bath Presbyterian Church in Augusta, aided and encouraged by a friend, Judge Schley, he perfected his model, Meantime, Elias Howe of Massachusetts had secured a patent on a similar machine.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Marooner's Island: Or, Dr. Gordon in Search of His Children

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The Young Marooners On the Florida Coast

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Boy life among the Indians. Adventures among the Indians. Cousin Aleck

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • Robert and Harold

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

Connections

In 1833, Goulding was married to Mary Wallace Howard, in Savannah.

In 1855, having married Matilda Rees, he moved with her to her estate at Darien, not far from his birthplace.

Mother:

Ann Holbrook

father:

Thomas Goulding

Wife:

Mary Wallace Howard Goulding

1808 - 1853

Wife:

Matilda Rees

Daughter:

Mary Goulding

1836 - 1908

Son:

Frank Ross Goulding

12 February 1842 - 14 September 1905