The Potter Journal

A STRANGE ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE

Most, if not all our readers, doubtless
recollect a prominent personage, Col. S. S.
Goode, who formerly resided in this city.
After undergoing many strange and start-
ling vicissitudes in life, and buffeting the
dark waves of adversity and misfortune,
he has at length become a wealthy and
titled gentleman. By the death of his
cousin, Sir Jasper Goode, who recently
died at York, England, he has fallen heir
to estates, the rental of which amounts an-
nually to £30,000 pounds sterling, and also
succeeds to the title, by inheritance. The
incidents and adventures through which
this singular individual—now Sir Samuel
S. Goode—has passed would fill a large
yellow-covered volume. At the age of
nineteen he was midshipman in the Tex-
an navy—then engaged in the war of inde-
pendence with Mexico—and was promoted
to lieutenant in three months for cutting
out a Mexican bungo under the guns of
the citadel of Vera Cruz. In the war
between the United States and Mexico
that immediately followed, he volunteered
in the American army as a private, but
by his gallantry soon won for himself a
Captain's commission. In the disastrous
filibustering of Lopez he commanded a
company—was taken prisoner at Cardenas
and only escaped the garrotte by the daugh-
ter of a Spanish officer, who became enam-
ored of him, opening the prison doors.
Undeterred, however, by his narrow escape
he next embarked in Walker's first expe-
dition—from this he also managed to es-
cape, after passing through untold perils
and sufferings. As all our readers are
already aware, he raised a company in
this city when the guns from Sumter
reverberated through the loyal north—
go to Mattoon, and was elected colonel
by his regiment (the 21st.) By some
means, however, he was deprived of his
command, and Gen. U. S. Grant, then a
plain citizen, was appointed colonel in his
stead. Weary and despondent, through
this disappointment, he neglected his
profession—the law—and by some chance
drifted into Carlinville, this State, where
at the time he received his fortune, he was
keeping a bar in a drinking saloon. He
passed through this city Thursday night
last, en route for New York, there to take
a steamer for England, honor and fortune,
—Decatur (Ill.) Tribune.