The original house that sat on the lot at 815 N. Market St. was built in 1903 by popular local contractors Robert Nall & Oscar Williams for Samuel H. Goodall.
Samuel H. Goodall was born in the city of Marion in 1866 to ex-sheriff and local businessman John Goodall and Sarah Scates Thorn. He attended Marion schools and then graduated from Southern Illinois Normal University in 1887 after which he taught school for two years. After developing a taste for the law he dropped the profession of teacher and attended the University of Michigan Law School graduating in 1891. He was at once admitted to the bar and began his legal and political life by being elected City Attorney of Marion.
In 1893, Goodall married Lizzie Cripps and was elected as a Democrat to the Illinois legislature for four years during the 38th Illinois General Assembly serving alongside Republican John H. Duncan, also a Marion resident. After his term was up, Goodall served one term as a Marion alderman and was also proprietor of the Marion Telephone Exchange, not surprising, since his brother Joab Goodall was founder of the first telephone company in Marion in the late 1880’s.
Realizing the potential of the blossoming Williamson County coal mining industry he opened the Crab Orchard Coal Company mine near Marion in 1896. In 1900 he opened up the Chicago and Big Muddy mine between Marion and Herrin and in 1902 formed the Carterville District Coal Mining Company which in the early part of the twentieth century was the largest coal mining project in the country.
When the 1910 census was taken, the couple and their four children were listed at the N. Market home but all was not well. Goodall’s Crab Orchard Coal Mine had been lost in foreclosure in 1902 and typhoid fever in 1908 had put him in a sanitarium in Michigan for a year. In 1914, Goodall filed for personal bankruptcy with debt reaching almost $200,000.
By the 1920 census, the couple had separated. Lizzie took the children and went to live with her widowed mother at 511 S. Market Street where she lived out her life until 1952. Sam spent the early 1920’s living in apartments surrounding the square and passed away in Carbondale in 1930.
After the Goodall’s vacated the house they had built, it was purchased prior to 1920 by Ed and Ida Alexander. The Alexander’s ran a dry good and ladies wear store called Ed Alexander & Co. at 902 Public Square that later became Alexander’s Department Store. This store building was later occupied by Goss Appliance’s and the whole block on the south side of the square burned down in May 1963.
After Ed Alexander’s death in 1958, his wife could no longer support the large home and sold it in the early 1960’s. The house was then converted into an apartment building with five apartments. Over time its decorative porches, dentils and trim pieces all disappeared or were covered with aluminum siding and the building was eventually demolished.
The current owners of the new home built on the lot in 2017 are Jon and Doris Ward.
(Sourced from Marion city directories, Marion newspapers, obituaries & federal Census records)