Goodin, Joel K., lawyer and legislator, was born at Somerset, Perry county, Ohio, Feb. 24, 1824. He received an academic education, after which he took up the study of law. Early in 1854 he was admitted to the bar in his native state and the following June located upon the Wakarusa river in what is now Douglas county, Kan. He quickly espoused the free-state cause; was a delegate to the Big Springs convention; was clerk of the lower house of the Topeka legislature until it was dispersed by Col. Sumner; was secretary of the council in the free-state legislature of 1858, and the same year he began the practice of law in Douglas county, but soon afterward removed to Ottawa. In 1866 he was elected to represent Franklin county in the legislature, and was reëlected in 1867. While a member of the house he assisted in organizing the State School for the Deaf at Olathe. On Jan. 8, 1846, Mr. Goodwin married Elizabeth Crist of Bucyrus, Ohio. She died on May 21, 1870, and he subsequently married Mrs. Catherine A. Coffin, nee Taylor, a daughter of one of the early presidents of Baker University. Mr. Goodin died at Ottawa on Dec. 9, 1894.