Jesse Benton Jr. (November 5? October 17, 1843) was an American settler of Tennessee and Texas who worked as a lawyer and who was closely tied to the interpersonal conflict behind Tennessee and American politics in the Jacksonian era. His brother was U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton (politician), Thomas Hart Benton, and the writer Jessie Benton Frémont was his niece. He and his brother were involved in a tavern brawl with Andrew Jackson in Nashville in 1813, and Jesse Benton shot Jackson in the arm. In 1824, Benton, a supporter of presidential candidate William H. Crawford, published an anti-Jackson pamphlet accusing him of nepotism, corruption, and grossly abusive behavior to subordinates. Benton was an early pioneer of the Republic of Texas; he left Battle of the Alamo, the Alamo to recruit reinforcements for the fort just days before the storied battle with the Mexican army. Benton died in Louisiana in 1843.

North Carolina to Middle Tennessee

Jesse Benton was one of eight children born to North Carolina land speculator Jesse Benton and his wife Mary "Nancy" Gooch Benton. According to the ''Raleigh Register'' in 1824, Benton was a native of Orange County, North Carolina. The family moved to Leiper's Fork, Tennessee along the Natchez Trace around 1801. There was mail waiting for Jesse Benton in Natchez, Mississippi in 1807, and 1808. Benton was also involved in a duel with future Tennessee Governor William Carroll (Tennessee politician), William Carroll that was, reportedly, several steps away from the original insult: # Carroll slapped an officer who had insulted him in some way at a ball; according to Elbert B. Smith, Elbert Smith this was Lyttleton Johnson # The officer sent Carroll a duel challenge that was carried by a man named Pilcher # Carroll kicked Pilcher down the stairs for insulting him by bringing him the challenge from the officer # Pilcher challenged Carroll to a duel for kicking him down the stairs, which message he sent by Boyd McNairy # When Boyd McNairy delivered the message to Carroll, the latter refused to duel Pilcher on the grounds that he was not enough of a gentleman to participate in a duel, and when McNairy offered to duel Carroll in Pilcher's place, Carroll said McNairy had been disqualified from dueling "because you were second in a duel and you made your man fire before the word was given." # McNairy delivered the above information back to Pilcher, who then sent Jesse Benton as his messenger, and after consulting with Andrew Jackson who said that Carroll might as well duel Benton as anyone since it seemed like an inevitability, Carroll and Benton dueled at a place called Sandy Bottom, in which doing Carroll was hit in the thumb and Benton took a through-and-through gunshot wound to the buttocks which left him bedridden for six months, likely contributed to long-term health problems, and was a source of much merriment amongst the local Jacksonians. Jackson served as Carroll's second in the duel that injured Jesse Benton. While this was going on, future U.S. Senator from Missouri Thomas Hart Benton (politician), Thomas Hart Benton was in the capital city, Washington, D.C., lobbying on ''behalf'' of Jackson, who had launched the Natchez Expedition without funding from the U.S. Department of War, and thus needed to get a funding appropriation made by Congress to cover his substantial expenseshe had borrowed $1,000 from merchant banker James Jackson (Alabama politician), James Jackson to buy beef and cornmeal and flour for the troops on the road home, and to rent wagons with Drayman, draymen to haul the sick. When Benton got back to Nashville and discovered that his brother had been shot with support from Jackson, all while ''he'' had been hustling on Jackson's behalf, a second (or seventh?) conflict erupted. Thus it was that, in 1813, the Benton brothers fought Andrew Jackson, John Coffee, Stockley D. Hays, and Alexander "Sandy" Donelson in a tavern in Nashville. The Bentons got the better of Jackson on that occasion, as Jesse Benton left Jackson with a "shoulder full of buckshot," a significant injury that left Jackson in a sling for months.

West Tennessee

After the War of 1812, Benton seems to have relocated from middle Tennessee to west Tennessee, in the vicinity of present-day Memphis. Jesse Benton reportedly came back to Hillsboro (Leiper's Fork) from the to see about the graves of his three sisters. According to ''The Tennessean'', which interviewed the neighbors in 1878, "The graveyard was built after the family had left here, which accounts for its small size. Jesse Benton came to the old homestead from Memphis for the express, purpose, of baving it done, and it was built of nicely dressed stone and put together with mortar...'I was present, when Isaac Benton laid off the stone wall. It is very dilapidated, now, much of it down, that now stands around the graves of Polly, Nancy, and Peggy Benton, and two of Nat Benton's children. The wall was built by two men by the name of Craig and Russell, I think, in the year 1816, or 17. Craig and Russell boarded at my father's while doing the work...I was well acquainted with the Bentons. Their mother moved to Missouri and died there." The sisters and their father had all died of tuberculosis. The same account of the Bentons in Williamson County, Tennessee, Williamson County stated, "Jesse is represented as having been a man of awful temper and of indomitable preservance." He married Mary "Polly" Childress in Williamson County, Tennessee, Williamson County in 1817. According to the memoir of an early surveyor, "No other persons had settled in Shelby County at that time that I know of unless Jesse Benton had done so on Big Creek." He was an early settler of Tipton County, Tennessee, Tipton County at the Third Chickasaw Bluff in the 1820s. In May 1822 he was a commissioner for a new road from Memphis to the Big Creek settlement and Loosahatchie River, and thence to the Forked Deer River, as well as a local justice of the peace. Benton promoted the development of Randolph, Tennessee. Randolph was an important riverfront settlement near the Second Chickasaw Bluff and mouth of the Hatchie River but the construction of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad to rival port town of Memphis doomed Randolph to long-term decline. According to local historian Marshall Winfield of the West Tennessee Historical Society there is a story about Benton's approach to "justice" in west Tennessee:

The "Tennessee opposition" to Andrew Jackson

According to historian Thomas Perkins Abernethy, Thomas Abernethy, there were a number of Tennesseans "who would not bend the knee" to Andrew Jackson, including Jesse Benton, Boyd McNairy, John Williams (Tennessee politician), John Williams, James Jackson (Alabama politician), James Jackson, Wilkins F. Tannehill, Wilkins Tannehill, and Newton Cannon. In August 1824 Benton listed himself as a candidate to be a presidential elector for William H. Crawford, and then in October 1824 recommitted himself to the apparently more viable candidate Henry Clay. Also in October 1824 he "issued a pamphlet villifying Jackson. This was circulated all over the country, but particularly in Tennessee and North Carolina." The pamphlet and a similar broadside charged Jackson with nepotism, corruption, and grossly abusive behavior to subordinates and his supporters described it as "scurrilous." According to historian Louis R. Harlan, Louis Harlan, the pamphlet "accused the General of 'every known offense against Divine and human laws,' among other things, of bulldozing and corruption in the Senate election of 1823, of Andrew Jackson and land speculation in the United States, speculation in Florida lands and the Salt Lick Reservation controversy, salt lick reservation, and barbaric personal conduct." William Berkeley Lewis, one of Jackson's circle of political promoters, wrote an point-by-point rebuttal in anonymous letter form that was published in the for the ''Philadelphia Columbia Observer'' on September 20, 1824. Benton was beaten in the race for elector by Nathaniel Dyer. Apparently Jackson and Benton had another physical fight at the "old Bell tavern in Memphis," probably sometime in the 1820s, which Jackson this time won. Thomas Hart Benton was eventually reconciled to Jackson and became one of his key allies in the U.S. Senate. Jesse Benton and Thomas Hart Benton became and remained partially or totally estranged over the Senator's alliance with Jackson.

Mississippi and the Republic of Texas

As of 1835, Benton was hanging out his shingle as a lawyer in Mississippi, advertising himself as a resident of Madisonville, Mississippi, "who proposes to practice law in the Circuit and Probate Courts of Madison County, Mississippi, Madison county, the Circuit Courts of Hinds, Yazoo, Holmes, and Attala, also, he will attend the High Court of Errors and Appeals, the Superior Court of Chancery, and the U. S. District Court, at Jackson." Benton was part of a group that traveled together from Nacogdoches, Texas in 1836, several of whom, including Davy Crockett, were later killed defending the Alamo from the Mexican Army. Benton, Peter Harper, and H. S. Kimble separated the group at Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas, Washington, Texas, rather than continuing on to San Antonio. Early reports about the Battle of the Alamo erroneously reported that Benton had been killed with Davy Crockett and James Butler Bonham. A scrawled note on an 1829 letter written by Benton that is held in the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site, San Jacinto Museum manuscript collection reads, "The gamest man I ever saw, killed in the Alamo, Texas, 1835." On April 21, 1836, the ''Arkansas Gazette'' newspaper reported, "The previous report of the death of Col. Jesse Benton is incorrect. Mr. [Jesse B.] Badgett saw him near Nacogdoches about the 25th, on his way to Jonesborough, Miller County, Arkansas, Miller county, Arkansas Territory, in this Territory, where a volunteer company was organizing, and with whom he intended marching for the seat of war." A letter written by Benton was published in a Memphis newspaper after the battle: L. W. Kemp's notes state that Benton "came to Texas in 1835; he was a member of Patton's Columbia Volunteers in the San Jacinto campaign and remained at the camp opposite Harrisburg; he was a member of the Texas House of Representatives in 1839–1840." According to Republic of Texas military records, Benton "enlisted April 9, 1836 in the company of Columbia Volunteers, commanded by Captain William H. Patton. He served as a private until April 23, 1836. He was honorably discharged October 9, 1836 having risen to the rank of first Sergeant, and first Lieutenant of the company." In 1842, Benton was the District Attorney for the Seventh Judicial District of the Republic of Texas.

Death

Original_grave_marker_of_Jesse_Benton_Jr

Benton died in Sabine Parish, Louisiana in 1843. At the time of his death he was part of a carvan of two related families, and their slaves, that were migrating back to Tennessee after the death of their kinsman, Texian leader Kelsey Harris Douglass, Kelsey Harris Douglas. Benton died without issue and left his property to his widow and his brother T. H. Benton. He and several family members are buried at Nashville City Cemetery.

References

Sources

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Primary sources

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External links

Benton bio - San Jacinto Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Benton, Jesse People from Tennessee 1843 deaths People of the Texas Revolution Political office-holders in the Republic of Texas 1780s births Benton family American duellists Andrew Jackson American slave owners