His two wives were sisters (Case, Lafayette Wallace. The Goodrich family in America..., pg. 48)
He purchased a large tract of land in Pontoosuc, now Pittsfield Massachusetts, there being but a single house in the town when he built his where the village of Pittsfield now stands The country was a dense wilderness without a single road. Solomon Deming had preceeded him and opened a trail to his rude home. He introduced the first cart and plow into the town and held the plow that turned the first furrow and sowed the first seed with his own hand. He was a member of the provincial congress in 1774 was engaged in the battle of Bennington Vt. Always prominent in public life he was the magistrate of his town, county judge, a member for years of the early State legislature, a firm believer in the ordinances of revealed religion as he saw it and did not hesitate to openly declare it. At the age of seventy five years he made his famous ride on a Narragansett pony from his own home in Pittsfield Mass to Pittsfield Vt over one hundred miles in one day to the home of his son James, and the knowledge of his arrival at night was made known by his shouting Fire having seen on his approach a building in flames. His son heard the shout from his own house fully three quarters of a mile distant and recognized his father's voice. At the semi centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town and the first agricultural fair he was drawn through the streets by fifty yoke of oxen standing on a stone drag holding a plow then at the age of ninety six years. He died the following year (Case, pg. 48-49)