You know him as “the hero of Manila Bay,” if you know him at all. Admiral George Dewey (1837–1917) is inevitably pictured as a dapper white-haired gentleman with a handlebar mustache. His name rang out in the 20th century for exploits in the Spanish-American War. His face appeared on souvenir ceramic plates, spoons, glassware, pins, commemorative medals, fans, and postcards. His name and likeness were used to sell whiskey, tobacco, insurance, tea, and Hershey’s chocolate.
But our focus isn’t on the most decorated naval officer in American history. Before he was a hero, George Dewey was a lover. And the woman he loved, Susan Boardman Goodwin, was from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Her father, Ichabod Goodwin, was the Civil War governor of New Hampshire. The family lived in a mansion on Islington Street, then a classy tree-lined avenue. The lovers were married there on October 24, !867. That house, once located across the street from Goodwin Park, was moved to the South End of town in the 1960s. It is now part of the 10-acre Strawbery Banke Museum campus.
According to George Dewey biographer Joseph Stickney, Susie’s death was “the greatest grief that has come into his life.” Their only son, George Goodwin Dewey, was born on December 23, 1872. Susie died a week later at age 28.
Young Mr. Dewey
By all accounts, including his own, George Dewey was an overactive boy. He preferred action to study and leadership to following others. Biographical descriptions range from “rebellious” to “energetic.” He was an athlete and a risk-taker. “As a lad, “ a Vermont newspaper reported, ”he would blindfold himself, stand at the top of the State House steps, and run as fast as he could down the steps, through a narrow gate, and across the street – heedless of the traffic.”
“My memory has kept no account of the number of boyish battles I was in,” Dewey wrote in his 1913 autobiography. “Certainly I was full of animal spirits, and I liked things to happen wherever I was.”
Training at the US Naval Academy in Virginia turned a wild child into a disciplined soldier. Action in the Civil War created a battle-hardened US Navy Lieutenant. He was stationed at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine and served under the famed Admiral David Farragut. Making his way through Portsmouth society, Dewey met the former NH Governor, Ichabod Goodwin, and courted his daughter, Sarah. In his autobiography, Dewey mentions her only once: “I took my bride to Annapolis, where I had three happy years.”
Local legend says George was smitten by the governor’s daughter when he arrived at Portsmouth Yard while serving aboard the USS Agawam. Unfortunately, another sailor, older and higher ranking, was equally attracted. Both were invited to a party at the Goodwin house. In a February 1864 letter addressed to “My little darling,” George held nothing back:
“I thought of you a thousand times and always as I last saw you, smiling through your tears. [Susie’s sister Georgie had recently died of consumption] God only knows how dear you are to me. Without your love I don’t care to live; I could not and would not. Everything here seems to be uninteresting and insipid.”
According to writer Margaret Whyte Kelly, the two became secretly engaged and wrote to each other daily while George was on duty during the Civil War. George claimed he had no secrets from her and his character was improving–he was no longer swearing–due to Susie’s influence. In a July 1864 letter he claimed:
“I flatter myself that with the belief that no one knows you as I do, I know no one no one, not even my father, understands me as my darling does and I would not have it different for the world.“
Over too soon
As George Dewey rose in the ranks, the young couple lived in Boston, Annapolis and Newport, Rhode Island. Susie, while pregnant in 1872, traveled alone by train to visit her ailing mother in Portsmouth. Then the Goodwins visited the Deweys for the birth of Susie’s son. Five days later, she died, perhaps from typhoid. Her body was returned to Portsmouth, where she is buried in the family plot.
Besides frequent references to her beauty and charm, we have few words of description of young Mrs Dewey. George never spoke of her again and could not bear anyone to do the same. He did not marry again for 27 years. A reference in the Portsmouth Daily Chronicle described Susie as “possessed of a lovable disposition.” Her mother, Sarah Parker Rice Goodwin, penned the following:
“I would have thankfully given my life to save her. She was young and beautiful, a power among her friends, an idol with her husband, and having everything to make life desirable. The expectation of this baby completed everything. Millions of money could not have added one iota to her happiness.”
SOURCE: Quotations from Sarah Her Story: The Life Story of Sarah Parker Rice Goodwin, by Margaret Whyte Kelly, Placenames Press, Portsmouth, NH,
2007 © 2026 J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved.
© 2026 J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved.
When a Building You Love Dies