Captain John Goodenow.  Immigration April 24, 1638 in Confidence, aged under 4 years.    He was brought up in the town of Sudbury, of which he was a citizen to the age of thirty eight before he could take part in the government of the town.  He was a farmer.  The public service career of John, from drumming the townspeople Churchward to presiding over the Town Meeting, spanned more than half a century and as years rolled on the positions of public trust and responsibility he was elected or appointed to fill extended to all parts of town government.
 Toward the end of his political life, perhaps due to a possible and lengthy illness of his wife... and because of thoughtless and uncontrollable impulses and desires, he finally placed himself in a situation that even his peers would not brook. However it happened, his was a record of effective service to the Town.  (Goodenows who Originated in Sudbury, Massachusetts 1638 A.D.- Theodore James Fleming Banvard)

1673; Freeman

March 26, 1677; He and others were granted liberty to build a saw mill on upper Hopbrook at a place viewed by a committee of the town, "which if they do they are to have twenty tons of timber and earth for dams". (Goodenows who Originated in Sudbury, Massachusetts 1638 A.D.- Theodore James Fleming Banvard)

 Captain John, was forced to resign all offices because of his adultery in 1697.
p. 102 "A closer look at some of the families we have examined provides a further contrary finding.  While the Knaps, with the patriarch on poor relief, fit in with the model of problem families as pauperized, the Parmenters and the Goodenows were leading citizens of Sudbury, providing deacons for the church, officers for the militia, members of the boards of selectmen, and representatives at the General Court.  Indeed, the main complaint against Captain Goodenow in 1697 had been that he monopolized all the town offices."
pp. 171-172 "One final instance, out of many, comes from the events in Sudbury in 1699.  In September the court approved and confirmed an agreement between Captain John Goodenow, on the one hand, and Joseph Noyes, Sr., and William Brown, on the other, arrived at with the 'friendly advice' of Thomas Clarke of Chelmsford and Ebenezer Grout of Concord.  Noyes and Brown were acting as spokesmen for a body of townsmen in setting forth dissatisfaction with Goodenow's public and private behavior.
  Publicly Goodenow had monopolized town offices and corruptly misused his power.  Privately, he had cheated at horse trading, been censured for drunkenness by his fellow church members, and attended only half the services.  What he did udring the other services is implied in the complaint:  'When he is absent from meeting the wife of John Brooks is absent also.'  Mary Clap was more specific:
 Being at John Brooks house during meeting Capt. Goodenow entered.  When he  thought me asleep he went to the bedside where Goodwife Brooks lay.  I did  hear them discourse in such a manner as was not mete for any but a man and  his wife.  The wife of John Brooks said that the custom of women was uppon  her and that her body was much swollen.  Capt. Goodenow said he hoped not  so.  Goody Brooks said it is ? if you will not believe me . . . how it is."  (Sex in Middlesex)

 Town Offices: 65 acts of community service spanning more than half a century