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Benson, Charles
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| LAST: Benson
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FIRST: Charles
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MID:
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| GENDER: M
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MAIDEN NAME:
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TITLE:
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| BORN: 10 May 1815
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DIED: 8 May 1902
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BURIED:
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| OCCUPATION: Farmer
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| BIRTH PLACE: Greenbrier Co., Virginia
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| DEATH PLACE: Marion Co., Oregon
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NOTES:
1st MARRIAGE - Elizabeth (Rudolph) Nickerson in MAr 1848 in Knox Co., Illinois. [Elizabeth Rudolph married Isaiah Nickerson 21 Nov 1844 in Knox Co., Illinois.
1850 OR TERRITORY CENSUS - Charles Benson, age 24 [sic], occupation farmer, b. Virginia, and Elizabeth Benson, age 24, b. Pennsylvania, are enumerated with John Rudolph, age 23, occupation farmer, b. Maryland, and Pyra, age 26, b. New York, along with Harvey, age 6, b. Illinois.
2nd MARRIAGE - Marilda Greenstreet 10 Oct 1852
1880 OR CENSUS - Charles Benson, age 64, occupation farmer, b. Virginia, is enumerated with Marilda, age 50, b. Missouri, along with Charles H., age 21, farm laborer, Fermon E., age 18, farm laborer, Marilda C., age 17, John R., age 15, and Dora B., age 12, William E. D., age 9, all born in Oregon.
BIOGRAPHICAL (Source Steeves, pgs 178-181):
Charles Benson was born May 10, 1815, in Greenbrier County, Virginia. In 1824 he went to Illinois with his parents, where they resided until 1848, when his hardy, adventurous spirit felt the urge tot try his luck in the far west Oregon country. With the families of a Mr. Rudolph and others, he set out on this long journey. Without any but the ordinary hardships of all immigrant trains, they arrived in the fall of that year.
Mr. Rudolph, mentioned above as a member of this train, had a charming daughter, Caroline [Elizabeth], so Mr. Benson thought. She was a delicate, lovely girl and soon after their arrival in the valley of the Willamette, Charley and Caroline were married, on November 1, 1849, [sic - no marriage record found in Marion Co., Oregon - see marriage record for Knox Co., Illinois] and immediately took up their donation land claim not far from Sublimity, Marion County, Oregon. Caroline’s health did not improve and after a two years’ fight with tuberculosis she died, strong in her Presbyterian faith, as was her husband at this time.
Mr. Benson was a man of more than ordinary endurance. Through all sorts of wind and weather he never wore a coat. He was a great man to walk long distances, doing it with much delight, and to show just what this hardiness consisted of, he performed one feat of walking that was the marvel of all the country.
During Caroline’s last illness, when hope for her recovery had almost fled and all available remedies had failed, Mr. Benson felt he must do something more. The only doctor was at Oregon City, about fifty miles away, but he thought possibly he could get some medicine they had not yet tried that would help her. It was in late winter, about February, with all streams badly swollen. Nothing daunted, Charley set out on foot for this place early in the morning and by breakfast-time he had reached the Molalla River, where he stopped long enough at the home of Uncle Sammie Allen to drink of a cup of coffee, without sitting down and to take in his hands the hot biscuits and jerked venison they offered to him, when he was on his way again. He always traveled in a dog trot and by bedtime he had made his way across the country, wading the streams as he came to them, arrived at Oregon City, got the medicine that even the doctor knew would do no good to the poor dying girl, and had gotten back to his home in Sublimity, covering the distance of about one hundred miles in about twenty hours. This seems to have been an impossible thing for a man to do, but the trip was so widely talked about and vouched for by the settlers on the way that even Charley’s word, that was never questioned, was not needed as a guarantee.
After Caroline’s death, Mr. Benson married Marilda Greenstreet on October 10, 1852. Marilda was the daughter of Absalom Greenstreet, who immigrated to Oregon in 1851. They were marred in the Condit Church, still standing at this date of 1926, about four miles southwest of Aumsville, Oregon. It was told the writer by a daughter of this sturdy pair that Mr. Benson first noticed Marilda as she passed by his claim on her way to the timber, where she was making rails and hauling them out with an ox team to fence her father’s new donation land claim, and this daughter related the following tale of their courtship’s beginning. By this time Mr. Benson had learned that the wife of an Oregon pioneer needed brawn as well as brain. Pioneering was no job for delicate women. The more he saw of this tall, slender, sinewy built girl, the more he thought she would make a good wife.
As has been recorded in the notes of the Greenstreet family, Marilda had already endured more than her share of hardships. Taken prisoner by Indians on the plains, taking her turn as a guard of the immigrant train through the long night vigils, tending their stock along the way, fighting with starvation, etc., then the hard man’s work that awaited her in her Oregon home, had brushed away some of the culture and refinement that are usually attributed to the Southern girl. In their stead, she had developed some of the sterner qualities.
It has been the history of all great wars of modern times that following in their wake is a great wake of profanity.
The “Winning of the West” was not so much one great battle of arms, as it was a long-drawn-out battle with the elements, with enough real fighting thrown in to make it real warfare. Profanity, according to all the old pioneers, was very prevalent on the plains during this “winning.” Marilda’s father was considered quite a champion along this line and it was easy for girls who had to work with and do the work of men to drift into this vernacular of the plains.
The first time Mr. Benson went to call at the Greenstreet cabin, Marilda was not at home. He had inquired for her and there was no doubt left in the minds of the family whom he had called to see, for all there were other marriageable girls in the household. Just then one of her sisters saw her coming toward the house, with ox team and her load of rails. Someone hurried out to tell her Charley Benson was waiting in the cabin to see her and to hurry. Marilda was tired from her hard day’s work, the ride of many miles over the poorest of mountain roads, and sitting on the load of rails had not added to her good disposition, so she answered back, “What in _________ does Charley Benson want to see me for? I’m in no hurry; just let him wait until I unload these rails and put away my oxen,” which she leisurely did, before she went to the cabin to meet her fate. For all she had become inured to all sorts of hardships and had adopted some of the sterner traits of character, typical of many pioneers, she lived to see a large family of sons and daughters grow up around her hearthstone, who dearly loved their devoted mother and who loyally cherish her memory. She lived to an old age, dying at her home near Sublimity on March 23, 1900. She, with her husband, and her parents, are buried in the Whitney-Hobson Cemetery near the above town.
The children of this union were: George I., John R., William E., Melzer A., Mary E., Ferman E., Katie E., Charles H., and Dora B.
Of these children, Ferman E. died April 21, 1882; Katie M. died January 3, 1884, and William E. died March 21, 1890. They were all buried in Whitney-Hobson Cemetery, Sublimity, Oregon. Mary E. married James Clark and moved to Moscow, Idaho, where she died on May 28, 1901. Dora B. married Herman Schelberg of Salem, Oregon, and owns part of the old home place. Her brother, Charles H., owns the other part, none of it passing into the hands of strangers at this date.
Uncle Charley Benson, the subject of this sketch, was a great lover of the chase. Hunting with his hounds, of which he always had a goodly number, was his chief delight. He was often heard to say that no music was so sweet to him as the baying of his hounds. It was related of him that one day, while passing along the street of Salem, he heard a young woman playing on an old-fashioned melodeon. The business he was in Salem for could not be transacted until the next day, so as he was in no particular hurry, he asked permission to sit on the porch to listen to the music. When she was finished, he jumped to his feet, in his energetic way, and said, “That beats anything I have ever heard, except the barking of my hounds.” The young woman felt much offended at this comparison, but to Mr. Benson this was quite a compliment.
Uncle Charley always had his ears turned to catch the far-off call of the chase, and in those days this call was given through the hunter’s horn, made from the horn of a cow. One day, coming along the road between Sublimity and Turner, he heard a peculiar toot-toot, not quite like the usual call to hounds, but he could think of nothing else that it could be, so scenting venison for supper, he set out with his trusty dogs to head off the prey. In the excitement, his hounds took him to the village of Turner, where, to his great surprise, he found he had headed off the first steam engine ever to run on the newly laid rails of the Southern Pacific Railroad through the town of Turner.
As has been written before, Uncle Charley never wore a coat. He also said that as a boy in Virginia he was nine years old before he ever had any clothing but a tow shirt. He believed lightweight clothing was conducive to good health and longevity. His ripe old age of eighty-seven speaks louder than words in this defense.
Mr. Benson was lucky in the selection of his donation land claim, and as the years went by he prospered. After many years, when steel rails united the east with the west and traveling was a pleasure compared to the way he had come out west, he made a trip back to his old home of Illinois. Clad in a new blue drilling shirt and a pair of trousers made of good strong material, bought for the occasion, and with his return ticket and seven hundred dollars tucked away in a pocket on the inside of his shirt, he set out. Being a very sociable man, it was not long until he made friends with the conductor, brakeman, as well as the passengers in his car. His wife had provided him with a generous lunch box, but after this became depleted, he had to look about for something to eat. This was in the “good old days” of the eating houses along the route, instead of the palatial dining cars that followed later on. Even in those days some lunchroom proprietors were a little careful as to the habits of their patrons and when Uncle Charley presented himself in all the glory of his new shirt, but coatless, the proprietor barred the door with his arm, saying he could not enter his dining room without a coat.
Uncle Charley was nonplussed. This was something new to him. Never before had he been refused a meal anywhere he had applied. He argued that he did not have a coat, but was no tramp. He even showed his precious seven hundred; but the restaurant man was obdurate and Uncle Charley went back to his day coach a wiser and a madder man. By that time the train was on its way again, but Uncle Charley was hungry and his dignity had been offended. When his new friend, the conductor, came along and heard about the treatment he had received, he assured him that it would all come out right after all and he would see if he could get him something to eat.
In those days even railway trains were not in so much of a hurry as they are today. The mad rush had not yet attacked the American people, so this conductor telegraphed ahead to the next available place to have the very best meal they could get ready for a man without a coat to eat when the train stopped. Sure enough the meal was ready and Mr. Benson sat in his shirtsleeves all alone in the dining room and ate to his heart’s content, while the train waited, under the conductor’s orders.
Uncle Charley was endowed with the rare quality of being a good storyteller. He also had much histrionic ability and this made him a welcome visitor at all settlers’ homes, as well as the chief entertainer, wherever the men of his day congregated. His satire, directed to the opposing political party (he was a staunch republican), always found ready listeners, because of the rare wit with which it was interspersed.
Even down to his old age he never rode when he could walk. It has been told of this old man that even when he knew his wife was hitching up the mules to drive to town, he would start out and go the whole way on foot, perhaps arriving there ahead of her.
Uncle Charley lived to see most of his pioneer neighbors gathered to their fathers. One by one they passed on and when his time came, it found him ready at the age of eighty-seven. He died on May 8, 1902, two years after his Spartan wife had passed on. He was buried beside her in the Whitney-Hobson Cemetery, near Sublimity, Marion County, Oregon.
DISCREPENCY - Charles' first wife is called Caroline in Steeves, but Elizabeth in the Knox Co., Illinois marriage records, and in the 1850 Census.
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OBITUARY:
Died – At the Salem Hospital, Salem, Oregon, Thursday May 8, 1902 at 4 o’clock p.m., Charles Benson, aged 82 years of infirmities attending old age.
Deceased was an early Oregon pioneer having migrated to this country from Missouri, his native state, early in the 40’s taking up a donation land claim in the hills near Sublimity upon which he has lived ever since. Three children survive him, two of which are daughters, one married and resides in Eastern Washington and the other daughter and the son, Henry Benson, reside at the old home near Sublimity. His wife died several years ago. “Uncle Charly” Benson as he was familiarly called, was known be all the early settlers as a sturdy honest old soul, a mighty hunter in his younger days, a good neighbor and a true friend, and his demise though expected, will be mourned by many hundreds who knew him in his life.
Daily Oregon Statesman 9 May 1902 6:2
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INSCRIPTION:
Father
Charles Benson
1815-1902
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SOURCES:
Saucy Survey & Photographs
Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, 1763-1900
1850 OR TERRITORY CENSUS (Marion Co., FA #232)
1880 OR CENSUS (Marion Co., Sublimity, ED 87, pg 154C)
Brown, Dyal & Marsh
Steeves, pgs 178-181
DOS 9 May 1902 6:2
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