F. Norton Goddard

He was born in 1861 in New York City to J. W. Goddard, and he had a brother, Warren Goddard.[1] He was a descendant of the first wagon master general of the Army under the command of George Washington, John Goddard of Brookline, Massachusetts.

He attended the Anthon grammar school and then Harvard University, graduating in 1882. He then joined his father's business, J. W. Goddard and Sons. He married Alice Grenville Winthrop on November 22, 1898 in Manhattan.[1]

After the death of his father he formed the Civic Club and became an anti-gambling advocate trying to eliminate the numbers game.[1]

In November 1901 he worked to get Albert J. Adams, the policy king incarcerated.[1]

He died on May 28, 1905 at 9:30 am in Litchfield, Connecticut.[1][2]

He dedicated his adult life to fighting vice and corruption. Though he and his brother Warren Goddard continued to operate J.W. Goddard & Sons (a leading purveyor of tailors' trimmings), Goddard's most notable accomplishment was rooting out the policy racket (an early form of the numbers game) in New York City. Near the time of his early death, Goddard had succeeded in shaming the Western Union company out of its active cooperation with wire houses that allowed illegal off-track betting. Today's OTB parlors are the legalized progeny of the former wire houses, immortalized in the movie The Sting.