Born in North Berwick, Maine, in 1811, Daniel Raynes Goodwin graduated from Bowdoin College in 1832, where he became a tutor and later professor of modern languages. He was ordained deacon in 1847 and became an Episcopal priest in 1848.

Highly esteemed as a linguist, Goodwin started at Trinity in 1853 both as its President (the first who had no prior previous experience with the college) and as the Hobart Professor (first of Modern Languages and Literature, then as professor of Ethics and Evidences of Christianity). In his German class, he apparently assigned the entirety of Goethe's Faust. He also taught half of the History courses while President. During his time in Hartford, he helped to establish the Society for the Increase of the Ministry. Sometime between 1854 and 1856, he chided undergraduate Maitland Armstrong (class of 1857) for immorality by Armstrong's attempt to paint a copy of “Venus Rising from the Sea” from a lithograph.

Just four years into his presidency, on February 5, 1857, Goodwin tendered his resignation to the Board of Trustees. Yet, they insisted he stay on, in part because of a fundraising drive. Even after he presented the Board with his resignation letter a second time in May 1860, the Trustees still were strangely hesitant to let him go. But in June of that year, after Trinity's Baccalaureate ceremony, Goodwin quit Trinity College for good. He was quickly named Provost and Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, a post he occupied for eight years.

The History of Trinity College (1967) by Glenn Weaver, pp. 86, 89, 92-96, 113-115, 118, 124, 143-144, 242.

Wikipedia: Daniel Raynes Goodwin