Captain Daniel Johannes Goos

Daniel Goos – Pioneer Lumberman, Lake Charles American-Press, February 16, 1917, p 4.

Daniel Goos's mill and home in Goosport
(Courtesy Archives and Special Collections at
Frazar Memorial Library, McNeese State University)

Special to The Times-Democrat.

INTERMENT OF THE BODY OF CAPT. DANIEL GOOS.

Lake Charles, May 20. – Capt. Daniel Goos was buried this afternoon at the family cemetery in Goosport. He was a prominent landmark in the history of Calcasieu parish. He was born March 23, 1815 on the island of Schleswig-Holstein. He emigrated to the United States about the year 1835, landing at Philadelphia, and thence soon going to New Orleans, where he was one of the founders of the first German lodge (Masonic) in that city, Germania Lodge No. 46, F. & A. M., which was chartered April 18, 1844. He was married to Miss Katharina B. Moeling, who was then only sixteen years old, in New Orleans, March 26, 1846. She died March 11, 1884. Soon after his marriage Capt. Goos moved to Biloxi, Miss., where he was engaged some years in supplying wood to towboats plying between Biloxi and the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi river. From Biloxi he moved to Ocean Springs, Miss., engaging there in mercantile and shipping business until the fall of 1855, when he moved to this parish and erected his family residence and a steam sawmill on the east bank of the Calcasieu river, about a mile and a half northeast of the then small village of Lake Charles, and there at what is now and has been for several years called Goosport, he resided until his death.

CAPT. DANIEL GOOS
IN MEMORIAM.

        The death yesterday of Capt. Daniel Goos, at his residence at Goosport, at the advanced age of 83 years, has removed from our midst a prominent landmark in the history of Calcasieu parish. Born March 23, 1815 on the island Fiohr, of Schleswig Holstein, then a Danish, now a German possession, he emigrated to the United States about the year 1835, landing at Philadelphia, and thence soon going to New Orleans, where he was one of the founders of the first German Masonic lodge in that city – Germania Lodge, No. 46, F. & A. M., – which was chartered April 18, 1844. He married Miss Katherina B. Moeling, then only sixteen years old, and who remained his devoted wife until her death, March 11, 1884.
        Soon after his marriage, Capt. Goos moved to Biloxi, Miss., where he was engaged some years in supplying wood to tow boats plying between Biloxi and the South West Pass of the Mississippi river. From Biloxi he moved to Ocean Springs, Miss., engaging there in mercantile and shipping business until the fall of 1855, when he moved to Calcasieu parish, La., and erected his family residence and a steam saw mill on the east bank of the Calcasieu river, about a mile and a half northeast of the then small village of Lake Charles, and there at what is now and has been for several years called Goosport, he resided until his death.
        Capt. Goos' married life was exceptionally happy and fruitful, his wife becoming the mother of fifteen children, six sons and nine daughters, all of whom attained the age of legal majority, and nine of whom – six daughters and three sons – are still living, and residents of Calcasieu parish, except one daughter who is now here on a visit.
        Capt. Goos and his excellent wife were naturally of a genial and generous disposition, and for many years before nearly all their children had married and left the old home place, and while a large number of grandchildren used to gather there, the family residence at Goosport was one of the happiest homes in Louisiana. Now, when all the surviving children have found other homes, and when today the body of the kind hearted old captain was carried to the narrow house appointed for all living, the old home looks desolate to those who knew it in days gone by.
        Capt. Goos was a man of iron frame and indomitable energy, and notwithstanding his great liberality and some serious business reverses, he leaves considerable and valuable property.
        He was always attached to the principles and purposes of Masonry, was a past master and life member of Lake Charles Lodge, No. 165, F. & A. M., and was buried with Masonic honors.
        Honest as the day, temperate in all things, devoted to his family, generous to the distressed, the universal respect and esteem in which he was held, and the general sympathy for the bereaved ones of his family, were fittingly expressed by the great multitude of citizens from town and country following his remains to the tomb in the family burying ground at Goosport. After weary months of sickness, during which everything was done that could be done by medical aid and the loving ministrations of his children and friends to alleviate his sufferings, he died peacefully and painlessly.

"And I am glad that he has lived thus long,
And glad that he has gone to his reward,
Nor deem that kindly Nature did him wrong
Softly to disengage the vital cord;
When his weak hand grew palsied, and his eye
Dim with the mists of age, it was his time to die."