Benton

H. W. Enyart taught the first school in the township and possibly in the county. He taught at his house in the sunnier and winter of 1837, and had same ten pupils. The tuition fee was two dollars and a half a scholar for a term of three months, taken in the currency of the realm, which was of assorted stock and variegated in color. There was no discount on the assortment; a gold dollar wasn’t any better than a deer skin, and a bushel or so of corn was just as good, if not a little better, for home …

Firsts of Benton Township Missouri Read More »

One of the foulest crimes committed during those dark days of civil strife was the murder of David Lockwood. He was an old man, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, a Tennesseean by birth and a Missourian by adoption, having removed to this State in 1844. He located on section six, and had a neat, well improved farm. Being an old man he remained neutral in the strife around him, attending to his business and looking after his stock and farm. He lost considerable property at different times taken by roving parties calling themselves militia. On the morning of …

The Death of Lockwood Read More »

Benton township lies in the northwest corner of the county, and is in area seven miles north and south and six miles east and west and contains within its borders 26,695? – acres of laud. The township is heavily timbered, there not being over three or four sections of prairie land in the township out of the forty-two sections it contains. The magnificent forests are a mine of wealth to the inhabitants, and they are aware of its value. Oak, hickory, walnut, elm, etc., are the principal varieties of timber, although almost every kind that grows in this latitude can …

Benton Township, Daviess County, Missouri Read More »

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 township, one of the three original townships organized when the county was formed in 1837, and remained …

Benton Township Now and when Settled Read More »