Benton Township Now and when Settled
Boundaries and Name
Benton township is bounded on the north by Harrison county, on the
east by Salem township, on the south by Marion, and on the west by
Gentry county. The territory occupies all of township sixty-one of
range twenty-nine, and also sections thirty-one, thirty-two,
thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five and thirty-six of township
sixty-two, range twenty-nine. It is the fourth township in size and
the second in point of population, the census of 1880 giving it
1,875 in number. It was originally a part of Grindstone town-ship,
one of the three original townships organized when the county was
formed in 1837, and remained a part of that township until
September, 1839, when the present township of Benton became Big
Creek township as did also about three-fourths of Salem. The south
line, however followed the channel of the river to the month of Hog
Creek; this left all the portion south of`the river in what was at
the same time organized as Jefferson township.
Up to the organization of Big Creek township, Benton had not been
honored with an election within its precincts. The elections being
held in Grindstone township further south. But when Big Creek was
set off in September, an election was ordered to be held October 5,
1839. This election was held at the house of Alexander Liggett, for
two justices of the peace, and the judges were Jonathan Liggett,
John Githens and Alexander Liggett. H. W. Enyart was one of the
judges elected at that time. Big Creek township covered considerable
territory, reaching from the Grand River, as above stated, on the
south, to the Iowa State line on the north, being about thirty-seven
miles north and south, and nine miles east and west on its southern
line, spreading somewhat as it reaches northward. The inhabitants
were badly scattered and it was a year or two before those in the
north part found out where they lived, or that any election had ever
been held in that neck of woods."
The County Court of Daviess county in the year 1840,
had a large amount of patriotism, with a pressure of about three
thousand pounds to the square inch, and it fairly bubbled up and
boiled over at the June term of the court of that year. They did not
want Daviess to be known as a backwoods county by any such primitive
names, as Clear Creek with its pellucid waters, or Grindstone with
its suggestive tendency of sharpening, or Big Creek or Honey Creek
with their primitive mingling of largeness and sweetness, none of
which gave any signs either of patriotism or of statesmanship. These
last were facts of local origin, for one was a pretty big creek, and
the other historic for many years, and those years a decade, before
this enlightened County Court took its seat. Honey Creek was a
regular bee-hive, and many a wagon load of this toothsome article of
the busy bee had been garnered along its flowery banks. But Daviess
county was, hereafter, to be named by townships, in honor of the
statesmen of the land, and so Big Creek, with its mammoth territory,
wealth of timber rolling surface and clear running streams, was to
be known as "Benton" township for all future time, and the name of
Missouri's greatest senator will ever be a household word in Daviess
county.
There is no township in the county whose people have exhibited more
energy and thrift than those of Benton. They had to work to make
houses for themselves and families, and while the soil in most parts
is rich and fertile, it was a timbered country and it had to be
cleared before crops could be raised. Benton township has steadily
improved and her population has kept pace with that improvement. In
no one thing is she behind her sister townships in all that goes to
make an intelligent and prosperous people.
When Settled
Benton township was first settled in 1833. In the spring of that
year Benjamin Sampson for the first time trod the soil and proved to
be the first white settler who made his home within its limits. He
settled on the western side of the township a little over a mile
from the Gentry county line, then Clinton county, on the southwest
quarter of section seventeen, township sixty-one, of range
twenty-nine. He built himself a log cabin and cleared a place for a
patch of corn. His neighbors were some miles distant and he played a
lone hand against the forest which surrounded him. But Sampson did
not bely his name, and he overcome the trees of the forest as his
namesake did the Philistines, but he used an ax. He came from good
old Tennessee, and his father before him from Virginia, the mother
of States and of statesmen.
On the 22d day of November, 1833, Mr. Sampson found a neighbor, and
one, as the future proved, worthy to be called such, and a
representative of the true pioneer. On the above date H. W. Enyart
settled on section eight, on the southeast quarter, something over a
mile from Mr. Sampson's residence. A tent was occupied until the
palace of logs was' erected. The cabin was built upon a plat of
rising ground, forty-eight years ago, and to-day, on that same spot,
Mrs. Mary Ann Enyart, the true and noble pioneer wife, still lives,
in the seventy-third year of her age. The cabin was built on section
nine, and the occupants came from Kentucky.
Then followed, the same winter, Benjamin and Jerry Burns and John Mc-Cully, and in the spring of 1834, Charles and Isaac Burns, brothers of the above named, arrived. They settled in the same neighborhood on sections eighteen and twenty. All were neighbors who were within five or six miles of each other. John Githens followed closely, and, he too, came in 1834; all these left the "dark and bloody ground," Kentucky, where they were reared, and bidding their "old Kentucky home, good-bye," they started west to grow up with the country. A few others came in on the eastern part of the township, and for awhile immigration ceased.
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