Walter Goodman was born around 1803 in either Massachusetts or New York. He married a woman named Anna, and their son Walter was born on March 21, 1830. They moved to Marshall County, Mississippi, by the 1830s, and he worked as a banker and land agent there.
He supported the Whig Party. In 1840, he joined a “committee of vigilance for the county of Marshall, to use all fair and honorable means in their power to elect [William] Henry Harrison President.” He was an early and active railroad promoter, and he became president of the Mississippi Central Railroad Company. A local writer declared him an “honest and kindly man [and] a good citizen.”
He sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. As president of the railroad company, he frequently corresponded with Governor John J. Pettus. He died in New York City on April 20, 1866.