William Goforth was the son of Judge William Goforth, a distinguished pioneer of Kentucky and Ohio. His mother was probably Catharine Meeks, who is recorded as having been married to a William Goforth in New York on May 16, 1760. The younger William was born in New York City.
William studied medicine with Dr. Joseph Young and Dr. Charles McKnight, the latter a surgeon and at that time a public lecturer, and just after he had reached his majority, accompanied his brother-in-law, Gen. John Stites Gano, down Ohio to Kentucky, landing on June 10, 1788, at Maysville, then called Limestone.
For eleven years, Goforth practiced at Washington. In 1799, he moved to Columbia, Ohio, a small village near Cincinnati where his father had settled, and in 1800 to Cincinnati, then a village of 750 inhabitants. There he took Daniel Drake into his house as a student.
In 1801, having received cowpock from Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, who had received it from England in 1800, he made what are believed to be the first vaccinations in the Northwest Territory, his pupil being one of the first to be vaccinated.
Goforth was then putting on his books from three to six dollars’ worth of business a day, although, according to Drake, the Doctor’s extremely unmethodical habits in money matters rendered only about a fourth of that amount collectible.
For Drake’s tuition, Goforth received from the young man’s father $400, a large sum when the regular fee for a physician’s visit was twenty-five cents. In June 1804, Goforth was commissioned surgeon-general of the 1st (Gano’s) Division of the Ohio Militia.
The following year, he signed with his military title the diploma which he gave to Drake, the first medical diploma issued in the Northwest Territory. He also helped Drake financially when the latter set out for further study in Philadelphia. Like his more famous pupil, Goforth had a keen interest in natural science.
In 1803, at considerable expense, he dug up at Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, a collection of prehistoric fossil bones, which he turned over to an English adventurer, Capt. Thomas Ashe, who took them to England, claimed all the credit for their discovery and kept the proceeds of their sale for the Liverpool Museum.
In 1807, being a great admirer of the French, he went to New Orleans by flatboat, becoming there a parish judge and a member of the convention which drafted the first constitution of the state of Louisiana. During the British attack upon New Orleans, he served as surgeon of a volunteer regiment.
In May 1816, however, having tired of New Orleans, he embarked with his family on a keel boat for Cincinnati, where he disembarked eight months later. He resumed his practice there, but in the following spring, he died from liver disease contracted during his voyage on the river.
Goforth was the leading physician of Cincinnati. He administered the first smallpox vaccines and conferred the first medical degree in the frontier west, and was a delegate to write the first constitution of Louisiana. He also excavated a large number of megafauna bones at Big Bone Lick in Kentucky.
An ardent Mason, Goforth usually embellished his signature with some of the emblems of Masonry.
Goforth was tall, of good figure, enthusiastic, sanguine, with an alert mind. His manners were distinguished; he was meticulous in his attire. Every morning he had his hair done and powdered by the barber, then, dressed in all the elegance possible, with gloved hands and carrying a gold-headed cane, he sallied forth on his daily visits.
His manners were courteous and polite and, as they sprang in part from great kindness of heart and he was especially courteous to the poor and humble, he was popular with all classes.
Quotes from others about the person
"He had the most winning manners of any physician that I ever knew" — Daniel Drake.
William married the daughter of Rev. William Wood, pastor of the Baptist church.
