Godfrey is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

Madison County, Illinois Madison County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is a part of the Metro East in southern Illinois. According to the 2020 census, it had a population of 264,776, making it the eighth-most populous county in Illinois and the most po ...

, United States. The population was 17,982 at the 2010 census. Godfrey is located within the Riverbend portion of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area.

Geography

Godfrey is located at (38.948097, -90.202886). According to the 2010 census, Godfrey has a total area of , of which (or 94.55%) is land and (or 5.45%) is water. The southwestern boundary of the village is a wall of limestone bluffs along the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it ...

. Approximately upstream is the mouth of the

Illinois River The Illinois River ( mia, Inoka Siipiiwi) is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River and is approximately long. Located in the U.S. state of Illinois, it has a drainage basin of . The Illinois River begins at the confluence of the ...

. The Missouri River empties into the Mississippi downstream. Godfrey retains the status of a village and is a mixture of small business, agriculture, and upper middle class housing developments.

History

The village is named for Captain Benjamin Godfrey, a native

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian province ...

er, who arrived in the area in 1832. 1838 saw the establishment of the Monticello Female Seminary, later renamed Monticello College. Captain Godfrey, the father of eight daughters, was an advocate of higher education for women and made a large donation of funds and land for the college. Monticello operated as a two-year college for women until the campus was sold in 1970 to establish