Re: James Morris Benton - NC & TN
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In reply to:
James Morris Benton - NC & TN
5/19/01
I have finally seen this post or one similiar once too many times (at least once a year).I love people who seek out history, do their research, do their detective work and explore possible answers.They make mistakes along the way and correct them when they find that missing record.That is the genealogy that we all love.This post represents the absolute worst in genealogy.It seems to utilize the principle that if you tell a lie enough times, people will finally begin to believe it.I know that a true genealogist sees through this kind of post immediately as a fairy tale but unfortunately, I also see people picking it up and repeating it.I do not want silence to be mistaken for acceptance any longer. The names of the people in this little story are real enough but their relationships are totally distorted or downright fabricated. Worst of all, it implies a certain pompous royalty and grandeur that never existed.Genealogists try to discover history, they have no license to rewrite it to serve their own fragile egos.
In the following, there are a number of references that were first cited to me in a very good self published genealogy entitled “The Bentons and the Taylors – The North Carolina Back Country” that was published by Alma Cheek Redden in July, 1969.The references that are cited in this genealogy make the research of Samuel and Jesse Benton very easy.Anyone interested in Samuel and Jesse Benton would do well to read the genaealogy and look up the well documented references.
Facts – Jesse Benton was the son of Samuel Benton.All of Samuel Benton’s children are identified in Court records and there is no James Benton mentioned.In addition to Jesse Benton, the children of Samuel Benton and his second wife Frances Kimbrough were in their order of birth Betty, Lemuel, Penny, Martha, Samuel, John and Augustine.NC Colonial Governer Mathew Rowan appointed Samuel Justice of the Peace in 1753.Samuel was re-appointed in 1755, 1760 and 1764 by NC Colonial Governor Arthur Dobbs.In 1764, Governor Dobbs also appointed Samuel Benton as Sheriff of Granville County.The Justice of the peace and sheriffs for a county were always appointed by the serving Colonial Governor as a matter of formality. A Justice of the Peace and a Sheriff had about the same status as those positions have today except that they are elected positions today.
Jesse Benton was the oldest son of Samuel Benton by a first marriage and was mentioned in Samuel’s will.Jesse was also appointed as Court Clerk of Surry County from about 1771 until 1776.Jesse apparently correctly guessed the outcome of the war because he resigned the Colonial Court Clerk’s job and served a few months in the Orange County milita.Jesse Benton enlisted as a private in Colonel William’s fourth regiment in April 1777 and served until February 1778.Jesse Benton was appointed a county Justice in Caswell County in 1777 although Jesse Benton and his half brother Samuel Benton always lived in Hillsboro in Orange County.Both were also lawyers.Jesse Benton married Nancy Ann Gooch in about 1777.1777 was obviously a very busy year for Jesse Benton.Nancy Ann Gooch was the daughter of William Gooch, a farmer in Caswell County, NC.There was a William Gooch who was Colonial Governor or Deputy Governor of VA in about 1750 but there is no known relationship to the William Gooch in Caswell County, NC.
Jesse Benton became a land speculator after the Revolutionary War.He bought up many North Carolina military warrants from Revolutionary War soldiers usually for a penny or two an acre.He once bought 25000 acres of land site unseen identified only as located on the “Waters of the Tennessee River” (not a very clear or defensible title).There is no record that Jesse Benton ever went to Tennessee.Jesse Benton and many of his family apparently suffered from tuberculosis.Jesse wrote his will 21 October 1790 and the will was probated in August 1791 in Orange County, NC court.Although Jesse had vast land holdings, he was deeply in debt at the time of his death.Nancy Benton is listed in the 1800 Orange County, NC census but no information is given.In November of 1780, Colonel Thomas Hart (Nancy Gooch’s uncle – that part is correct) gave a power of attorney to trusty friends James Hogg and Jesse Benton.Jesse Benton was heavily in debt to Colonel Thomas Hart. Jesse himself had shown great concern about his indebtedness in a letter to Thomas Hart prior to his death in 1790-91.Whatever Colonel Hart’s problems were in 1780, he was still alive on 16 March 1802 when Nancy Benton sold “Meadow Place” to Thomas Hart to satisfy the last of Jesse’s debt to her uncle.Thomas Hart, now living in Fayette County, Kentucky, had sued Nancy Benton in Orange County Court in about 1800.Thomas Hart won the suit and the sale of “Meadow Place” was the result of the court decree.
William Gooch’s first wife (and Nancy’s mother) was Ann Hart Gooch and thus the relationship to Thomas Hart.William Gooch’s (Nancy’s father) will was written 5 November 1801 and his will was probated in Caswell County, NC court in January 1803 (book D, pages 130-132).I believe that Nancy had stayed in NC hoping to inherit some of her father’s property.Jesse Benton was supposedly also deeply in debt to Nancy’s father and apparently William Gooch was not happy with that debt.In his will, William Gooch awarded his daughter Nancy Benton, Widow of Jesse Benton deceased, one shilling sterling to her and her heirs forever.
Jesse Benton and Nancy Gooch Benton had the following children:
1. Peggy Benton ba 1779, died in Williamson County, TN between 1803 and 1810.
2. Mary Benton ba 1780, died in Williamson County, TN between 1803 and 1810.
3. Thomas Hart Benton born 14 March 1782, died 10 April 1858 in Washington D. C.Thomas Hart Benton was a lawyer, served as a Colonel in the Tennessee Volunteer Army in the war of 1812, feuded with Andrew Jackson and moved to Missouri in about 1817/18 where he served as senator from 1820-1850.
4. Jesse Benton JR ba 1783, died in TN in 1843.
5. Nancy Benton ba 1784, died in Williamson County, TN 1803-1810.
6. Samuel Benton ba 1786, died in 1846 in San Augustine Texas.Samuel Benton actually fought a duel with Andrew Jackson.Both were seriously wounded but both survived.
7. Nathaniel Benton born February 1788, died in 1833.
8. Susannah Benton ba 1789, died in 1806 in Williamson County, TN (Susannah left a will in Williamson County leaving her earthly possessions to a sister still living.Her brother Samuel was the administrator – I do not find the will at this moment but it would name the sister still living)
Jesse Benton appears in the county deed records of several TN counties.Most all of his land was eventually sold for taxes. A very interesting record appears in the 1804 court records of Montgomery County, TN.John Cooke the sheriff sold 640 acres of land to Robert Nelson the highest bidder for three mills (this is the cheapest actual purchase price that I have ever seen).I believe that the currency of the time required 10 mills to equal 1 cent.The record names the heirs of Jesse Benton deceased as Thomas Hart Benton, Jesse Benton, Nancy Benton, Polly Benton, Samuel Benton, Nathaniel Benton and Louisa Benton.The heirs of Jesse Benton had a judgement against them for six dollar and Eighteen cents and three mills.
Nancy or Ann Benton is shown on the Williamson County, TN tax lists with0 White Polls and no tax (since she was a widow) in 1801, 1802 and 1803 (I believe that she was an absentee owner during these years).I do not believe that Nancy moved from North Carolina until after the probate of her father’s will in January 1803.Nancy Benton moved her family to Williamson County, TN (approximately 40-50 miles southwest of Nashville).Jesse Benton had owned 2560 acres of land in Williamson County which he had bought site unseen from John McGee on 6 December 1789 and it appears that this is the only tract of Jesse’s land that Nancy was able to salvage.In 1804, the Williamson County tax list shows the heirs of Jesse Benton with Nancy Benton 0 WP and Thomas H Benton with 1WP living on the property.By 1810, all of Nancy’s daughters had died without marrying.In about 1817 or 1818, Nancy moved with Thomas Hart Benton to St Louis Missouri.Nancy Benton died in St Louis Missouri in January 1837 at the age of 80 years.She outlived her husband by 46 years, her son Nathaniel, and her four daughters.
It is a pretty good story based on the facts but there is no royalty, no forty square mile English land grant in Nashville, TN, and No Colonial Governor Gooch of NC.Something less than a fifth of the land in TN was given in Military grants and the rest was sold as a source of revenue (usually at $1.25 per acre) by the National Government.North Carolina had ceded it’s right’s to Tennessee land to the National Government after the Revolutionary War with the exception of specific military districts which were reserved for Soldiers who had supported the Revolution.It is all in the records, we have to get up from the computer every now and then and go to the library.Let us also quit repeating fairy tales and calling it genealogy.
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