Peterson Goodwyn

Born at his father's plantation "Martins" near Petersburg in the Colony of Virginia to Joseph Goodwyn and his wife the former Martha Thweatt, Goodwyn had at least 11 siblings, including a brother Joseph Goodwyn Jr. who also served in the American Revolutionary War and Dr. William Boswell Goodwyn who practiced in Southampton and whose son and grandson (both William S. Goodwyn) would serve as the Commonwealth attorney and later judge of Greensville County (on a railroad line linking Petersburg with North Carolina).^[2] Educated by private tutors as a child, Peterson Goodwyn later read law.

Goodwyn was married to Elizabeth Peterson in Dinwiddie, Virginia, in 1779.^[3] They had three sons, Edward Osborne, Albert Thweatt, and Peterson Goodwyn Jr., and four daughters, Martha, Lucy Ann, Eliza Peterson, and Emma Eppes Goodwyn.^[3] Their marriage lasted until Peterson's death in 1817.^[3] The Goodwyn's daughter, Eliza, was the great-grandmother of actor Joseph Cotten.^{[citation needed]}

Goodwyn became a planter and named his plantation "Sweden". He also was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1776, and began his legal practice in Petersburg and surrounding areas.

During the Revolutionary War, Goodwyn equipped his own company of Virginia militia and rose through the ranks from captain to major. He was promoted to colonel for gallantry at the Battles of Smithfield and Great Bridge, both in Virginia. After the war, he joined the Society of the Cincinnati.

Voters in Dinwiddie County elected him multiple times as one of their two representatives in of the Virginia House of Delegates (a part-time position). Goodwyn served from 1789 to 1802, except in the 1795-1796 session, when Drury Jones and Alexander McRae, both of whom he had served alongside, became the county's two representatives.

Voters elected Goodwyn as a Democratic-Republican to the United States House of Representatives in 1802. Re-elected numerous times, he served in the 8th through 15th congresses (1803-1818) and died in office. During the War of 1812, his son Edward Osborne Goodwyn (1776-1841) served as a Captain. His district was originally Virginia's 18th congressional district and after the 1810 census became Virginia's 19th congressional district, although neither district has existed since the 1840s due to Virginia's relative decline as the western states grew.

On February 21, 1818, a year after the death of his wife Elizabeth, Peterson Goodwyn died at his estate "Sweden" in Dinwiddie County, Virginia. He was interred in the family cemetery on the estate. Goodwyn also has a cenotaph at Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.