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The son of Margaret Elizabeth (Clark) and Erastus Hickman Goodrich, Erastus Timothy 'E.T. Goodrich was born July 25, 1846, in Buffalo, New York. He was the youngest of four children, having two older brothers (Edson and Ezra) and an older sister (Louisa). His father was a respected jeweler and watchmaker.
The Goodrich family moved to Chicago during The Civil War and E.T. became involved in the family business. At the time, Chicago was host to a burgeoning skating community, with skating clubs formed at the Ogden and North Side rinks and two more rinks on Wabash Avenue and the West Side. It was in The Windy City that E.T. cultivated his skill in his favourite winter pursuit: 'fancy' skating. At five foot eleven, with dark hair and piercing blue eyes, he was a striking figure on the ice.
At the time E.T. was impressing Chicagoans with his skating prowess, 'fancy' skating competitions were fraught with serious drama. Skating rinks and promoters throughout Canada, the Eastern Seaboard and the Midwest organized many competitions billed as the Championships of America, Canada or North America, offering medals, trophies or cash prizes. Newspapers of the era were resplendent with advertisements where a top skater would 'challenge' another skater to compete against them. In January of 1867, E.T. travelled to Pittsburgh to compete in one such skating 'fancy' skating contest. He won first prize, taking home a gold medal and a four hundred dollar cash prize - a princely sum in those days. In winning, he defeated many of the top skaters of his day, including Callie Curtis, William H. Bishop, Captain John Miner and J.J. Engler.
Without fail, William H. Bishop (who went by the 'stage name' Frank Swift) issued a challenge to E.T. in the "New York Clipper". A letter published in November of 1867 read, "From Mr. E.T. Goodrich's non-acceptance of my challenge issued October 12th, I would infer that he is afraid to meet me. I do not claim to be a swifter skater than he is and do not wish to have the meaning of my challenge misconstrued. I am a 'fancy skater' and as such would have Mr. Goodrich understand that I wish to skate against him. I would also say that I do not consider him the Champion of America, as the match in which he won his medal took place in a part of the country where skating is in its infancy, and the judges, men who did not understand the first principles of skating, in fact had to have most of the movements explained to them. I hereby re-challenge Mr. Goodrich to skate at a match at 'fancy skating' on ice for $300 a side, to take place at New York, Philadelphia or Boston, between the 15th and 31st of Dec. 1867. Each to choose two judges and they select a referee. The match to be skated according to N.Y. Club Rules, Mr. G. to be allowed to wear 'ankle supporters'... If he is not afraid to skate with me he will certainly accept."
E.T. ultimately did accept William H. Bishop's challenge, competing in a three-day 'fancy' skating contest for 'best three in five' in Albany, New York in December of that year for a two thousand dollar prize. A report in the December 28, 1867 issue of the "New York Clipper" noted, "Half of the movements on the programme were executed when one of Goodrich's skates broke. Mr. Swift being willing, the judges decided to postpone the match till the following day. On Saturday, at 3 PM, the match was resumed. The remainder of the programme was gone through with, both doing their utmost to excel. The crowd was divided in the opinion as to their merits of the men, but it was generally conceded that the accident to Goodrich's skates lost him the match." In a rematch on Union Pond, E.T. defeated William forty-two points to forty. The two men had to perform no less than twenty-five figures and specialties.
E.T.'s prize winnings from these 'fancy' skating contests, coupled with his earnings from the family jewelry business, no doubt made him realize there was money to be made in skating. Skating alone and in a pair, he made the rounds in Vaudeville-style theatre shows in New York, skating alongside minstrel acts. In 1869, he dazzled audiences in Cleveland and Chicago productions of "Humpty Dumpty", performing a duet with 'skatorial queen' Carrie Augusta Moore. In a March 3, 1889 interview published in "The Sunday Leader", E.T. recalled, "Tony [Denier] in connection with a man named Ellsler, had purchased the sole right of that wonderfully successful pantomime show of Fox. Tony was the clown, Joseph M. Sloan took the part of Pantaloon; Harry Leslie, the celebrated tightrope walker, was Harlequin; Mlle. Auriole, Columbine, and Louisa Sylvester made a very lovely burlesque. Clara Morris was in the cast. She was a ballet dancer in those days and played the part of Romance, one of the leading characters. She looked very pretty in tights and tinsel and made quite a hit... I had been performing in 'Humpty Dumpty', imitating the ludicrous evolutions of a novice on the ice, when I had the misfortune to fall and break my arm. [Frank] Swift took my place and did remarkably well. I was with George L. Fox, the clown and original Humpty Dumpty, at the old Olympic theatre in New York, for over two years. Quite an attachment sprang up between us. When the [Christy minstrel show] company went on the road I accompanied them. This was the beginning of my famous tour around the world."
E.T. arrived in England in the fall of 1869. He recalled, "I had formed a partnership with [Alfred] Moe. He was a magnificent skater and a splendid fellow. We did the carnival act [from 'Humpty Dumpty'] and made a big bit. The English people had never seen roller skating before. It was a good company from top to bottom. Archie Hughes was bones, Walter Howard tambourine and Arthur Fitzgerald interlocutor. We were at St. James' Hall in Liverpool for several weeks and did a famous business. It was during my connection with the show that I skated in the presence of the Queen [Victoria] and the rest of the royal family. I never saw a woman laugh so heartily as she did over my imitation of the adventures incidental to the skating tyro. The papers [the] next day gave us a great send-off. We were made lions of and nothing would do when we got to London but Moe and myself must give an exhibition on the ice. So on Sunday afternoon, we gave the exhibition, skating in Victoria Park between 12 and 1 o'clock, in St. James' Park between 2 and 3 and Regent's Park during the next hour. I never saw such crowds at a skating performance before."
E.T. and Alfred Moe were billed in England as 'The Champion Skaters', though they had never entered a competition together. In his 1897 book "On The Outside Edge: Being Diversions In The History Of Skating", George Herbert Fowler claimed, "The Mohawk step was probably introduced to England on rollers by [Alfred] Moe and [E.T.] Goodrich in 1869-70. It seems to have then been transferred from rollers to ice, and christened at the London Skating Club about 1879." Edgar Syers shared Fowler's belief that the Mohawk was first performed on rollers. In the 1900 edition of "The Encyclopædia Of Sport", he remarked, "I believe that the Mohawk steps were first skated by the professionals Moe and Goodrich at the Crystal Palace Roller Rink in 1870, and afterwards skated and named at the... Skating Club."
E.T. found love in England, marrying Elise 'Lizzie' Marion Hutchins, the daughter of a Captain in the Merchant Service, in May of 1870. Alfred Moe and his wife Sarah were the attendants at their wedding and the marriage certificate listed E.T.'s occupation as Skater. That summer, instead of a typical honeymoon, the Goodrichs and Moes headed to Norway, where E.T. and Alfred wowed the people of Oslo with their roller skating talent. E.T. recalled, "While in London we contracted with the people who were running the 'Black Crook' at the Crystal Palace, and when Jarrett & Palmer bought this spectacular play we were brought back to New York. Jarrett spent $45,000 in putting the play on the boards in Niblo's Garden. We opened on the night of Monday, Dec. 12, 1870. Pauline Markham was cast as Stalacta, queen of the Golden Realm. She was a beautiful woman and soon had all Gotham at her feet. As soon as our contract expired, Moe and myself started for Europe again, refusing big salaries to continue our engagement with Jarrett & Palmer. There was too much money abroad. We started in Alexandra Hall, in Manchester, and made a complete tour of Europe and Asia. When in St. Petersburg, the Czar decorated us with gold medals. Most of the time we were with circus troupes."
Upon E.T.'s return to America, he took over his father's role in the family business. He and his wife Lizzie adopted a son, but a year later E.T.'s partner in the jewelry business retired, leading to the dissolution of the firm. He decided to refocus on skating, forming a new partnership with his former competitor Callie Curtis. If that name sounds familiar he was the one who dolled himself up in his best Victorian drag in an attempt to win the prize money in a 'ladies' fancy skating contest' in 1869. E.T. and Callie each had their own specialties. E.T. was known for his spread eagle jump and rocker steps; Callie for his flying corkscrew toe-spin and Curtis Star. In 1874, they appeared in productions at Fox's American Theatre in Philadelphia and The Howard Athenæum (Old Howard Theatre) in Boston.
E.T. and Callie's successes in Philadelphia and Boston led them to go on a European tour of their own. In England in May of 1874, they appeared in minstrel shows as 'Champion Skaters of the World', 'Knights of Icy Steel' and 'Emperors of Skating Science'. That summer, they appeared in a series of shows at a former equestrian theatre in Paris known as the Cirque des Champs-Elysées. Their performances were so novel to La Belle Époque spectators that author Frédéric Dillaye remarked, "I slipped away wondering if the sight of skaters in the middle of summer had not a harmful influence on some brains."
In the winter of 1874-75, E.T. and Callie travelled to Russia, where they crossed paths with Jackson Haines. In a 1911 letter that was later cited in Fritz Reuel's 1928 "Das Eissportbuch", E.T. remarked, "Curtis and I were in St. Petersburg and gave in a covered ice rink performances when [Haines] got there too and suggested that all three of us should go to Helsingfors in Finland, where he had been before, and give a series of performances. We were significantly better than he, both as far as demonstration and actual skill were concerned, that was not subject to comparison; and he saw that
and left us the next week. Curtis and I stayed another week or two more. All he could do was about: figure eight on one foot, one vine, pirouette on both feet and a jump from forward to backward
with a long run in a pose-like position and lots of dancing to the music." E.T. and Callie ultimately followed Jackson Haines to Finland. The trio gave a series of performances together in Kaisaniemi Park in Helsinki in February of 1875, just months before Haines' death.
E.T. and Callie Curtis proved tremendously popular in Russia and Scandinavia before they toured the Continent with a small American gymnastics troupe. They performed before a who's who of European royalty, including the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), Czar Alexander II of Russia and Emperor Wilhelm I of Prussia. They even skated hand-in-hand on the ice with King Alfonso XII of Spain. An account of one of their productions in Linz, Austria, published in the "Tages-Post" in February 5, 1878, highlights their audience appeal: "They first gave solo exhibitions in elegant costumes, with medals of honour adorned and then skated as a pair, with Curtis dressed as the girl of modern of times, charmingly dressed... They both appeared to be newbies to skating, behaving in the most comical way and awkward manner. The gentleman wanted to show himself gallant and lead the lady in the sleigh, which he succeeded to do so badly that the sled and its contents are tumbling all over and the lady finally gets stuck in the overturned sled. The way she gets out of this uncomfortable situation is the funniest thing you can think of."
After their successes in Austria, E.T. and Callie continued their European tour, appearing in Estonia on rollers (1878), at the Zoological Gardens in St. Petersburg, Russia on rollers (1878), in Christiana (Oslo) and Norway at the Tivoli Theatre on rollers (1878). They starred on ice in the Carnival sur la Glace at the Cirque d'Hiver (Cirque Napoléon) in Paris (March 1879) and appeared in shows on ice at the Palais de Glace and on rollers at The Folies Bergère (Autumn 1879). Not long after, E.T. and Callie parted ways. Curtis married 'Miss Niagara', an underwater artist at the Furst Theatre, and lived in Vienna for a time before settling in a suburb of Hamburg and opening a restaurant.
Callie Curtis and his understated moustache
E.T. remembered Callie Curtis fondly. In his 1889 interview with "The Sunday Leader", he remembered, "Callie Curtis joined me along about 1873. We made a tour of the States first and then started abroad. We had some very funny experiences together during the carnival scene. While we were with Chiarini's Royal Italian circus a brilliant special performance for the benefit of the King of Denmark was given. I will never forget how mystified he was at our evolutions and would not be satisfied until he had examined our skates to satisfy him that we were not governed by some mysterious influence. Curtis and myself were traveling until 1879. Then I formed my own company. This was a very successful combination. There were five of us in the company, including my wife, who was a skater, and our little boy Bert, who was known as the 'infant prodigy'. Besides our skating entertainment we had a novelty known as 'The Batterie de Cuisine'. Dressed as cooks we would by the aid of pots and pans produce some very excellent although eccentric music with finer graduations of expressions than might be thought possible. We could render airs from 'La Fille de Mme. Angot', 'Les Cloches of Corneville', 'Tout a la Joie', and other music that was popular so long abroad. The troupe was consolidated with Chiarini's circus afterward, and we continued together until shortly after the famous performance under the distinguished patronage of His Highness The Maharajah of Jahore, India, on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 1883. I have one of the programmes of the event still. It was printed on white satin with red border." After his performance in India, E.T. settled in England briefly before returning to America with his wife aboard the Anchoria in 1884.
Left: E.T. Goodrich in later years. Right: Grave of E.T. Goodrich.
E.T. and his wife settled in Chicago, where they operated a large boarding house for a time and E.T. worked as a loan agent and bookkeeper. In 1907, when he was in his early sixties, he reunited with his old friend Alfred Moe to perform a comedy act on rollers in a series of shows presented by the Anna Held Company. Predeceased by his wife, he passed away in a Masonic Home on October 19, 1933, in East Nelson Township, Illinois at the age of eighty-seven.
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