Received his education at the Westfield and Fedonia academies, N.Y., and at the Austinburgh Academy, Ohio; at seventeen, he commenced the study of medicine with Dr. John Spencer, at Westfield; attended the Western Reserve College of Medicine at Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated in February, 1861 at twenty years of age. In May succeeding, received a certificate as assistant-surgeon, and in July 1861, enlisted as hospital steward in the Ninth New York Cavalry. In April, 1862, was made acting assistant-surgeon in the United States army, and was assigned to the battalion of U.S. Engineers, and attached to the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, where he served until the fall of 1864, when he resigned and left the army. He practiced medicine at Jamestown, N.Y. one year, and then went to New York, where he engaged in business and remained until the fall of 1870, when he left, and established at Akron, Ohio, a factory for the manufacture of India-rubber goods, under the name of the "B.F. Goodrich Company," which, by his energy and skill, has become one of the most successful and prosperous business enterprises of that kind in the country (Case, Lafayette Wallace. The Goodrich family in America... pg. 291-292).