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In last week’s edition, a 1962 article about the Good Castle in Stockton had been featured. Bill Skinner, who has emailed the Stockton Sentinel wonderful pictures and articles about the Castle, also sent this 1964 response from Stockton’s Francis W. Schruben referencing stories about the Castle. In his article, Schruben challenges another story about the Good Castle written in a September 1962 issue of the Central Plains daily newspaper. Here is his response: “There is a difference between history and hokum. As an example, in September 1962, a Central Plains daily newspaper published an engrossing feature article about Enos and Eliza Good and their “Castle,” the remains of which are to be found on a slope overlooking Dibble Creek, northwest of Stockton. Lending romance to this article was its development of a theme of mystery about the old stone house and its former occupants, this one does not hold together well under investigation. In the cause of accuracy this 1962 narrative should be compared with available documents and records. Such a comparison reveals an interesting object lesson that local legends are not always to be accepted at full value, that not everything written by hurried or careless journalists is to be given credence, and that even the inscriptions on gravestones cannot always be trusted. The newspaper story raised questions about such topics as why the Goods—‘lord and lady in waiting to Queen Victoria’ had homesteaded land in Kansas. Why they had built their stone castle, whether they had left England hurriedly because of political exile or a scandal, whether they were remittance people who dressed for dinner and observed a tea-hour, Eliza’s appearing in Victorian finery for church services, an unused nursery built in the old castle, and their eventual deaths and disappearance of costly furnishings given Enos and Eliza by Queen Victoria. The article concluded that in all probability any of the questions surrounding the Goods would never be answered.
