Luther Marcellus Goddard was born on October 27, 1840, at Palmyra. He was the son of Edwin P. Goddard, a native of Connecticut, who married Marie Fillmore, second cousin of President Fillmore, and was for a time a farmer and miller at Palmyra, Wayne County, New York.
Luther spent his youth at Palmyra, attending the public school and working for his father during vacations.
In 1854, the family moved to Abingdon, where he completed his education at Hedding College and commenced the study of law.
For a time he had contemplated entering the ministry, but on his return to Leavenworth, he resumed his legal studies and in 1864 entered the Law Department of the University of Chicago (Catalogue, 1864-65).
Goddard was admitted to the bar by the supreme court of Illinois in June 1865 and returned to Leavenworth, where he commenced practice. In 1868, he was appointed deputy county attorney, for Leavenworth County, serving as such for two years, and in 1871, was elected a member of the Kansas state legislature, in which capacity he distinguished himself by introducing a bill to confer the suffrage upon women.
In 1872, he was elected county attorney and held that position for two terms. The mining industry in Colorado was at this period in its initial stages of development, and, anticipating wider opportunities, Goddard moved in 1878, to Leadville, where he opened a law office, at the same time interesting himself in mining operations.
In 1880, he was elected a member of the Leadville school board and he was its president for three years. In 1882, he was elected judge of the district court of the 5th judicial district of Colorado.
He had incurred the bitter hostility of a small element of the populace, and a determined attempt was made to oust him from the bench, petitions being presented to the legislature alleging that in the course of the election he had been guilty of bribery and other high offenses.
A legislative committee appointed to hear the charges having exonerated him, quo warranto proceedings were taken in the supreme court, which were also unsuccessful. As a last resource, his antagonists filed a petition with the supreme court asking for his disbarment, which after a full hearing was refused.
In 1888, he was re-elected as a district judge and in 1892, before his term as such expired, was nominated by the Populist and Democratic parties and elected a justice of the supreme court of Colorado.
This necessitated his removal to Denver, where he thenceforth resided. Having been re-elected for a second term in 1896, he remained on the supreme-court bench till January 1901, when he retired and resumed active practice in Denver.
He was president of the State Bar Association in 1904-05. He was again appointed to the supreme-court bench by Gov. Peabody in 1905, when the personnel of the court was enlarged and served until his term expired on January 1, 1909, when he again resumed practice.
Goddard's judicial opinions were distinguished by their clarity and conciseness. When he ascended the bench the statutes and regulations dealing with prospecting and the location of mining claims and their subsequent development were in a rudimentary condition, and it was largely due to his common-sense decisions and the masterly opinions which accompanied them that the law on the subject was made to fit new conditions and assumed its present form.
Holding strong opinions on most questions of the day, and fearless of consequences in discharging what he conceived to be his duty, Goddard made some bitter enemies in the course of his public career, but in private life he appeared to great advantage, possessing great social charm, spontaneous humor, and an inexhaustible stock of anecdote and story.
Goddard was married in 1881 to Mrs. Anna Elizabeth (Westcott) Miller, at Leadville.
