Samuel G. Goodrich

Samuel G. Goodrich was born in Ridgefield, Connecticut in 1793. He left school at the age of fifteen and went to work in a country store. He went to Hartford, where he worked in a dry goods store. He educated himself, and also studied with Lydia Sigourney. In 1816, he went into the publishing business. In 1823, he visited Europe. In 1828, he moved to Boston and began to write children's books under the pseudonym, Peter Parley. These proved immensely popular. He died on a business trip to New York in 1860.