My Genealogy Hound

JAMES UNDERWOOD, the eldest child of John and Sarah (Morrison) Underwood, was born Oct. 14, 1789. He grew up in the town of Carlisle and became a printer, at which occupation he engaged most of his lifetime. During the war of 1812, while working at his trade in Baltimore, he enlisted in Captain J. H. Moore’s Company, 1st Baltimore Volunteers, and served one year on the Niagara frontier, participating in the battles of York and Fort George. His term of service having expired, he was honorably discharged September 8, 1813, at Lewiston. After his return from the war he resumed his vocation of printing and for some time conducted a press at Greensburg. Pa. William B. Underwood, son of John Underwood, by his first marriage, was also a printer, and in 1814 established the American Volunteer, associating with him as editor and proprietor his half-brother, James Underwood. In the publication of the paper both engaged for many years, James until his death, in 1834, and William B. until 1836, when he retired because of bodily infirmities. William B. Underwood died Dec. 7, 1850, after many years of disability from paralysis. His wife, Ruth Marshall, a native of Maryland, and a daughter, Jane McCord Underwood, survived him several years.

James Underwood in 1818 married Catherine Goddard, daughter of Thomas and Mary (Scott) Goddard, of English nationality. Her father was born in Boston, Mass., of English parents, and Mary Scott, her mother, was born in London, England, but came with her father, Capt. John Scott, to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she met and married Thomas Goddard. In 1785 Thomas Goddard and his wife removed to New York City, where in 1796 their daughter Catherine was born. While Catherine was yet a child her father died, and her mother afterward married Jacob Squire, and with him and her child by her first marriage came to Carlisle, where Catherine grew to womanhood and married.

James and Catherine (Goddard) Underwood had six children, viz.: Sarah Morrison, Mary Scott, Martha Ker, Anne Harriet, Edmund and John Morrison. Martha Ker graduated with honor from the Steubenville Seminary and afterward taught in the schools o Carlisle for thirty years, being principal of the Girls’ High School for sixteen years. She and her sister, Sarah Morrison, died in the month of January, 1890. Mary Scott married Dr. Isaiah Champlin Loomis, by whom she had four children. One of her sons, an officer in the United States navy, was lost in the ill-fated ship “Huron” on Nov. 24, 1877. She died at the home of her son, J. Harry Loomis, in Philadelphia. Sept. 30, 1903. Edmund, the elder of James and Catherine Underwood’s two sons, was born Feb. 23, 1828. In 1847 he joined the Cameron Guards of Harrisburg, Capt. E. C. Williams, and served as a volunteer in the war with Mexico. In March, 1848, he was appointed second lieutenant in the regular army and assigned to the 4th Infantry, the regiment in which Gen. Grant in the early part of his career was quartermaster. For several years the regiment was on duty at various points along the Canadian frontier, but in 1852 was ordered to the Pacific coast. Before sailing Lieut. Underwood was married to Mary Beardsley, of Otsego county, N. Y., who accompanied him to California. He was stationed at various points on the Pacific coast until the breaking out of the Civil war, when he was ordered East. On March 24, 1853, he was promoted to first lieutenant; on March 11, 1856, to captain; and on May 14, 1861, he was commissioned as major. He died Sept. 5, 1863, at Utica, N, Y., where he was then stationed as mustering and disbursing officer for southern New York. He left two sons: Edmund Beardsley Underwood, who was born in California in 1853; and Champlin Loomis Underwood, who was born at Richfield Springs, N. Y., in 1857. The former graduated from the Naval Academy, Annapolis, and is now commander in the United States navy and stationed at Tutuilo, Samoan Islands; his wife was Charlotte Hamilton, only daughter of the late Prof. E. J. Hamilton, of Oswego, N. Y. His brother, Champlin Loomis Underwood, married Deborah Creswell, of Overbrook, Pa., and they have one little daughter, Josephine.

John Morrison Underwood, the youngest child of James and Catherine (Goddard) Underwood, was educated in the public schools of Carlisle and at Dickinson College, class of 1853. He studied law with A. B. Sharpe, Esq., and was admitted to the Cumberland county Bar April 11, 1855. He then removed to Greensburg, Pa., and on May 14, 1855, was admitted to practice in the courts of Westmoreland county, and in the following year was elected district attorney of that county. He continued to practice his profession at Greensburg until the fall of 1861, when, his health failing, he returned to Carlisle, where he died in May, 1862.

Of the six children of James and Catherine (Goddard) Underwood only Anne Harriet survives. Like her sister, Martha K., she long was a teacher in the schools of Carlisle, teaching continuously from 1858 to 1873. She resides in the old home on South Pitt street, Carlisle, where she was born, and which has been in the Underwood name and occupancy since April, 1823.