-
2 Three Generations of Bentons
- RIT Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
19 chapter 2 Three Generations of Bentons What enables some people to accomplish amazing things? It can’t be simply intelligence because many people have that gift. Desire and temperament are certainly critical ingredients, but early childhood experience may also be an important component. Facing difficulties, especially early in life, seems to trigger a set of responses that lead to achievement later on. The Benton family raised several high achievers. Charles Swan Benton found opportunity where others would not have seen it. His son Linn Boyd was forced at an early age to rely on himself because his mother died before he was five years old and the family moved frequently. Linn Boyd’s son Morris suffered from a childhood illness, which set him apart from his peers. Overcoming adversity gave each of the Bentons a strong character and played a part in shaping who they would become. Charles Swan Benton The Benton family’s American history began when Andrew Benton, an Englishman , settled in Connecticut in 1638.1 One of his descendants was Charles Swan Benton, born July 12, 1810, in Fryeburg, Maine, the youngest of the ten children of Dr. Joseph Benton and Catherine Britton Benton.2 Charles’s father, Dr. Benton, was a physician of the old school. He was competent and well-respected, traveling “day and night, through storm and sunshine, in season and out of season in a one-horse gig, to minister to the wants of the sick and suffering.”3 Charles admired his physician father, “of whom it was said that his scoldings cured more people than did his medicines.”4 While still a boy his mother sent Charles to Little Falls, Herkimer County, New York, to be apprenticed to his uncle, a tanner. But after a short time Charles decided instead 20 the bentons to attend Lowville Academy, paying his own tuition by doing chores. Later he studied law with his oldest brother, Nathaniel Seley Benton (1792–1869), also of Little Falls.5 Nathaniel had been a soldier in the U.S. Army in the War of 1812, and later became a county surrogate, county judge, a member of the New York state senate, district attorney for northern New York,6 and secretary of state from 1845 to 1847.7 Nathaniel was the first “president” of Little Falls and the author of the first “History of Herkimer County.”8 Today there is a grade school in Little Falls named after him. In 1832, when Charles Benton was 22 years old, he established the Mohawk Courier & Little Falls Gazette. Two years later, Josiah A. Noonan became publisher and Charles remained as editor,9 bringing him prominence and a means for being vocal on political issues.10 Charles was well liked: “by his kindly social qualities, with good principles and superior intelligence, [he] won his way to the esteem and confidence of the people in this village and county to a degree rarely equaled.”11 He was commonly known as “Colonel” Benton because of his connection with the New York militia, “having been commissioned, in 1833, as judge advocate of the first division of riflemen, with the grade of colonel.”12 Charles was admitted to the bar in 1835 but apparently was not destined to remain simply a lawyer since, as one hand-written eulogy pointed out many years later, “he possessed a warm feeling-ed, human friendly for right and truth glowing heart, and a man with one such heart, can as lawyer here not successful be.”13 In 1837, however, Charles was appointed surrogate judge of Herkimer County. In 1840, he married Emeline Fuller of Little Falls. Two years later he was elected as a Democrat to Congress from the 17th Congressional District of New York State, and was reelected in 1844. In Washington, Charles met a congressman from Kentucky named Linn Boyd, who later became Speaker of the House of Representatives. The two became close friends and shared an interest in dueling. Linn Boyd trained Charles Benton by saying, “Never fight a duel; never be afraid to fight a duel; let them know you will fight and you will never have to fight.”14 Charles honored his friend by naming his first son Linn Boyd Benton, born in Little Falls on May 13, 1844. Charles was elected as the first clerk of the Court of Appeals for New York State in 1847 and served for two terms. His wife Emeline died during this time, about three years after Linn Boyd was...