[4] From 1892 to 1894, he was a member of the Seattle City Council[3] (a bicameral legislature at the time[4]) and, in 1894 and 1895 served in the Washington House of Representatives.

[4] During the Klondike Gold Rush, he and his wife Clara relocated to Alaska and ran a successful steamboat operation carrying prospectors to and from the Yukon Territory from 1897 to 1901.

[3] With them to Alaska, they brought the materials to build sawmill and two steamboats, which were hauled on the Dead Horse Trail over White Pass to Skagway.

The boat he named after himself, the A. J. Goddard and the F. H. Kilbourne were the first two steamboats to run the upper Yukon River from Skagway to Dawson City.

[4] He was active in banking and as a building contractor, and was heavily involved in Gold Rush reunions.