I always find it interesting to discover how some of our Marion streets got their names. They don't always have interesting stories, but this one is an exception, as recounted many decades ago by Marion librarian and historian Nannie Gray Parks.
Sarah Ann Scates was born in Glade Springs, Virginia, on Aug. 1, 1825, the daughter of Dr. Zebulon B. Scates and Eliza Brownlow. Her father and grandfather were ministers of the gospel of the Methodist faith, and she received a liberal education at a seminary in Abingdon, Virginia, making her home with her uncle, Joseph Brownlow.
Sarah met Dr. James Patten Thorne at a camp meeting near her home, and they got married in January of 1846 and came by horseback to Marion the same year. Sarah rode a tall, claybank horse 18 hands high. Marion and Williamson County were only 7 years old, Williamson having been created in 1839 from the bottom of Franklin County.
At one time, the Thorne family boarded at the tavern of Captain John M. Cunningham in Marion. Mary Cunningham, who later married John A. Logan, would help Mrs. Thorne fasten her dress in the back.
The family established residence in a log cabin just east and slightly south of the Marion square in what was described as a pleasant meadow. Four children were born to the couple: Virginia, Naomi Letitia, Hiram M. and Zebulon B.
In 1849, during the California gold rush, a man returned to Marion with a gold nugget, weighing 1.25 ounces, which he sold to a merchant in Marion for $18 or $19, a goodly sum in those days. In April of 1850, Dr. Thorne boarded his family in a Marion hotel and left for California with a crew of locals to seek his fortune. While the doctor was away, three of the Thorne children died, two of scarlet fever, leaving only their daughter, Virginia.
After the doctor returned to Marion, he became ill and died in September of 1852, at the age of 37, and was buried beside his children on the family farm. Before his death, he called in the sheriff of Williamson County, John Goodall, and told him he was going to die and that his wife and child were going back to Virginia to her relatives. He asked Sheriff Goodall to help Sarah sell the land and to see that she was not cheated. Before that, Sarah had seen Goodall only once when he came riding through on the road where the Thornes lived in a log cabin. Dr. Thorne had invited him to dinner, much to the embarrassment of his wife, who was cooking by an open fireplace.
Sarah returned to Virginia, but did not sell the land. Four years later, Goodall traveled to Virginia and courted the late doctor's wife. When Sarah saw him get off the stage, she thought he was the tallest man she had ever seen with his high silk hat and frock tail coat. They were married in Virginia in June of 1856, and the new family, consisting of John and Sarah Goodall and Virginia Thorne, left for the Illinois country the same day. In that same month, upon return, Goodall was appointed guardian for Virginia Thorne.
Sarah's father, Dr. Zebulon B. Scates, came from Virginia to visit his daughter and family. He thought she lived in a God-forsaken country and wanted to take his daughter back with him, but she refused. While visiting her, he went to Johnson County and brought back locust trees, which he planted on Thorne land. Some of the trees were still standing in 1936 in Marion.
Sarah and John Goodall went on to have six children. Two of their sons, Joab and Samuel H., became extremely prominent in Marion development as businessmen, and the Goodall family left many lasting marks in the pages of Marion's history. During the Civil War, Sarah's daughter, Virginia Thorne, married Samuel W. Dunaway, another prominent Marion businessman. The Dunaways went on to become very wealthy and lived out their later years as part of Carbondale's high society.
Sarah and John Goodall both died within several months of each other in 1897 and were buried in what was then the new city cemetery, Rose Hill. At the time of his death, county historians recorded Goodall as being one of the most influential people of his time in the county. Virginia Thorne Dunaway passed away in 1918.
The location of the old Thorne homestead came to be referred to as Thorne Place. When Thorne Place was laid out as an addition to Marion around 1905, the remains of Dr. Thorne and his three children were moved to Rose Hill Cemetery by Joab Goodall. When streets were named, Thorn (the "e" was dropped) and Virginia streets were named after the early family and their one surviving daughter.
Today, there is little to remind us of Sarah and John Goodall, save one beautiful, stained glass window in the sanctuary of First Christian Church on North Market Street, dedicated with a plaque to their work in helping found the early church. Unfortunately, I have never found a photo of John or Sarah.
