Daniel Goff
 

In June of 1754, a generation before the Declaration of Independence was signed, Samuel and Diana Goff, free people of African descent, welcomed a newborn son named Daniel into their growing family. Daniel was born during a difficult and changing time in Colonial Virginia. Feelings of opposition to the crown began to stir when he was just a boy, intensifying as he neared adulthood. Life for free African Americans like the Goff family was changing as well.

Dependence on slave labor was growing in tobacco-rich Virginia, and slave-holders were suspicious of the motives of free African Americans who lived nearby. Samuel and Diana Goff were land-owners and paid taxes, but their paper trail suggests they had begun to suffer economic hardship by the 1760s. They sold 167 acres in Cumberland County in 1762, and two of their sons, Abraham and Samuel Jr., were “bound out” by the Chesterfield County Court the same year. Though Daniel was not indentured at that time, he may have been later, as he, too, ended up living in Chesterfield County, VA, at the home of James Harris, a man he would later call “Captain,” during the rapidly approaching war.

In September of 1777, Daniel enlisted in the Virginia Continental Line for a period of three years. He appears on the rolls of the 5th, 11th, 14th and 15th regiments. His service rolls show how many miles he covered over the next three years. He suffered the brutal winter encampment at Valley Forge under the command of General Washington, then fought at the Battle of Monmouth before heading south to Charleston, SC , finally ending his service where it began, in Chesterfield, VA. At the time his pension was filed,

Daniel recalled serving under (among others) Washington and Lafayette. He was one of five identified Goff brothers who served in the war for Independence:
Abraham Goff, Daniel’s eldest brother, was born ca. 1743. He appears on the rolls with Daniel at Valley Forge, in the 15th regiment; they served together for about a year before Daniel transferred to the 11th regiment. After four years’ service, Abraham settled in Bedford County, VA.

 Samuel Goff, b. ca. 1745, enlisted in the Continental Army in September, 1777. At the Battle of Paulus Hook, NJ, August 1779, Samuel was killed in action. In a letter to Congress, Washington praised the “merit of these gallant men,” who were triumphant, Samuel among them.

 Zachariah Goff, born ca. 1759, enlisted in Cumberland County, VA in 1777. He later received a pension in Bedford County, VA, and a petition for bounty land was entered in his name by his widow, Betsey. He served in Col. Richard Parker’s 1st and 2nd regiments on Continental establishment.

 Moses Goff, born ca. 1760, enlisted in the Virginia Continental line in Cumberland County, and is listed, along with brothers Zachariah and Abraham, in a “settlement of accounts” statement in 1783, for payment due to soldiers of the Virginia Line.

A soldier named “John Goff” also appeared on the rolls of the 15th, along with Abraham and Daniel, though it’s unclear if he was their brother. John died on 16th May, 1778 at Valley Forge.

In the late 1780s, Daniel Goff made his way to Kentucky in the company of Campbell County pioneer, Major David Leitch, who also had lived in Chesterfield, VA and under whom Goff’s brother Abraham had once served. It’s probable that he was hired by Leitch as a laborer to help with the clearing and construction of Leitch’s Station, an early settlement along the Licking River. Through this association Goff became acquainted with Newport founder, Gen. James Taylor, who married Leitch’s young widow, Keturah, in 1794, after David Leitch’s death from pneumonia. Taylor hired Goff as a gardener for his property in Newport, where Daniel remained for forty years.

The records for Goff during his time in Campbell County are spotty, as free African Americans in slave-holding Kentucky were often overlooked. He does appear on the Campbell County tax list in 1805, and he may have been counted among the five people who were free, non-whites in Taylor’s 1810 census. In 1820 the census for the Taylor household does have free people of color, but no adult males number among them.

Sometime before 1830, Daniel Goff made his way to Boone County. He may have been hired by Alexander Marshall, who bought his property on Gunpowder Creek in 1827. The census for Marshall in 1830 shows a free man of color in the 55-99 year-old range, among the residents. Marshall also had ten enslaved people listed in his census record.

At the urging of James Taylor, Goff applied for his pension in Boone County, in 1833. In his affidavit on Goff’s behalf, Taylor recounted the numerous conversations he had had with Daniel about his service, over the more than forty years they had known each other. Taylor also expressed concern for the aging man’s welfare. In the pension application, Taylor testifies that he “felt much for this poor colored man who had become old and infirm.” The pension was approved.

It remains a mystery how Daniel Goff and Alexander Marshall came to know one another. There are some records indicating an Alexander Marshall had once lived in Chesterfield County, Virginia. It’s also possible that Goff had a family on the Marshall farm, among the enslaved people owned by Alexander Marshall. Perhaps his family was once enslaved in Campbell County, and he moved to be nearer to them. Listed among the 16 slaves named in Marshall’s 1844 estate inventory there is an enslaved man, about 22-30 years old, named “Daniel” who could be his namesake, and two women of the right age to be a mother to this young Daniel. Daniel Goff received his last pension payment in 1843, indicating his demise at the age of 89.

In all probability, he was buried in the Marshall family cemetery, on the outer edge, among the enslaved people who also found their final resting place there.

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