Amenia Benton's

AMENIA BENTONS

by William A. Benton, 2nd

My Great Grandfather, the 2nd Caleb Benton, came from Guilford, Conn. to Leedsville with part of his belongings on the first four-wheeled wagon ever seen in Guilford, or perhaps in Amenia, in May 1794. The balance of his goods and most of the family came by sloop to Poughkeepsie and were brought across the County by the same team and wagon.

Two sons of Caleb 2nd reached maturity; Joel 1st and Wm. A. 1st.

Caleb 2nd built the dwelling on the East side of the Webutuck, now known as the Century for his son Joel 1st. Joel 1st begat Simeon who was the father of Joel 2nd, born May 29, 1832, who founded the Amenia Times.

Wm. A. Benton 1st, son of Caleb 2nd, was born in Guilford and moved with the family to Amenia in 1794, when he was six years old.

He lived the remainder of his life at the Old Homestead, later named "Troutbeck" by his son Myron B. Benton, for the large, neverfailing spring at the N.W. corner of the house, which formed a clear, cold brook, where protected trout became almost pets.

He married first Cytheria Reed and second Betsey Reed, her sister. Fifteen children were born to these two mothers, of which Father, Ezra Reed was the fourteenth.

As Father has told me of him he was a man about my size and build, about 5'6" tall and weighing about 140 lbs., active and with great endurance. He would work all day with his men in the field and several hours at night in his shop, at his various side activities.

He was an excellent mechanic without modern tools and must have been very ingenious for he built his shop and water wheel to power it.

The water wheel was a twelve foot overshot about 30" wide as I remember the remains of it. I am not sure whether the power was transmitted to the shop by rope drive or by wooden gears, but it also ran the shieve for the rope drive to the West barn, about seventy-five feet away where the threshing, wood sawing and grain cleaning was done.

As side lines to farming he dressed flax, made brooms, sawed stone, made shingles and rope. To aid the farming he threshed, sawed wood and cleaned grain, also ground feed.

EZRA REED BENTON, son of Wm. A. 1st and Betsey Reed, was the fourteenth of fifteen children ( two mothers) born at Troutbeck, Leesville.

He grew up at home and worked with his father on the farm and at the side lines of the business which Grandfather ran to augment his income.

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He spent a year in Michigan with his half sister Juliana and her husband Jerome Cobb, when he was about twenty.

Married Bebecca Lowrey Hitchcock, bought a farm on the hill West of Long Pond ( Wenonkokook ) in the town of Salisbury, Conn. and lived there till 1876, Lillian and Homer were born there.

He operated the farm and hauled ore from "Ore Hill" to the furnace at Lime Rock as a side line. It was while he lived there that he became acquainted with Wm. Bissell, who lived at the lower end of the pond, a friendship which lasted to the end.

CHANGES IN THE HOUSE

In 1876 when Father and Mother moved here, changes were made which have already been mentioned on page Previously there was a narrow porch on the East side of the old kitchen, covering the present entrance and window south of it, and a stoop back of the kitchen, I think similar to the present one. Over the front door there was a square porch the width of the hall, with two large, fluted pillars.

The back stoop gave way to the present kitchen and was duplicated behind it. The woodhouse which our kids all remember had a small room at ground level, which was made for a Summer kitchen, I have been told and a room above it was for the use of a hired man or hired girl.

In about 1887 Father built, in the angle between the woodhouse and the back stoop, a Summer kitchen which was really a wonderful place to work. In those days with all the cooking and baking done over a wood stove, the regular kitchen got about as hot as the stove itself. The cookstove was moved out to the new kitchen in the Spring and back in the Fall and the present kitchen used as a dining room during that period.

I think about 1890 Father had the old front and side porches removed and the present ones built.

In 1917 I reorganized the kitchen, taking out the old pantry and pushing the stairs out into the stoop, installing the cabinets and dumbwaiter. We still had no electricity and used an ice refrigerator. Electricity and the G. E. "Squirrel Cage" refrigerator did not come till 1926.

FIRE PLACE

When the old fireplaces were taken out in 1876, they built straight chimneys in the North rooms, marble mantel with a false grate below, in the East room. Not a pretty thing.

The house was never shea,ted, the siding was not too tight, so we decided to shingle the outside, for warmth. We always wanted a fireplace, and this was the time to build it.

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The boys and I took the straight chimney down without breaking the plaster in the upstairs room, then built the present fireplace, cutting away the siding as we went up with the chimney. The siding was replaced and the house shingled. The fireplace cost $75.00, aside from the labor.

Grandfather Homer Hitchcock, here at Sinpatch, was in poor health and it had been decided that Father and Mother should sell the Salisbury farm and take over down here. In order to make the house suitable for the increase in family, changes were planned in advance. The big fire place and brick oven in the South end of what was then the kitchen, were to be taken out, the roof raised to make a bed room above and an addition built on the back for a new kitchen with bed room above that.

The four fire places in the North rooms, which were not considered safe, to be removed and straight chimneys built. The down-stairs rooms to have all new windows. These changes were all made eventually.

Father was hauling materials for these renovations, in the early Spring of 1876 when Homer Hitchcock died very suddenly; He was sitting by the East window of the kitchen talking with his housekeeper. She noticed that he did not reply to something she said, looked up and he was dead.

WM. A. BENTON 2nd was born here in what is now the living room of this house, December 16, 1881.

I was a delicate baby I have been told, no food agreed with me and they thopght I would die. Finally they found I could take "Nestles Food" and I survived.

There is no record that I know of, of the exact date Father was incapacitated by a shock, other than early in 1913. He and Lillian were living here at the farm, of course.

He was confined to his room from then till the time of his death in the Fall of 1914. To aid in his care I had the bathroom put in in the Spring of 1913. Lillian took care of him and did a splendid job. He was not sick but could not get around. Sat up most of the time and read quite a lot. I tried to see him as often as possible, almost every day.

Bill Murphy was taking care of the farm and I advised with him on that. That was a cold, wet year and corn was poor all over. Our corn was in the stout, Bill started husking and found it so soft that it would spoil if cribbed. When he told me of this I immediately ordered a 16'x32' silo and started digging a six foot pit and had the foundation ready before the silo came. We shoved it up and cut the stouted corn into it. It made fairly good silage. Otherwise it would have been a heavy loss.

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We moved to the farm in the Spring of 1915 and I continued operating the dairy. The stables were old and there was a constant argument with the N. Y. milk inspectors about ventilation, etc. I began almost at once to work on plans for a new barn.

Materials were very scarce due to World War I and I had to order several different times before I could get the steel for the reinforcing of the concrete.

I built the barn in about two years, with the farm help and one carpenter, Gilbert Dean. He worked for me practically steady for two years. He was an excellent carpenter.

When I built the barn I intended to produce certified milk, but was too late as the war set changes in motion which completely revolutionized many things, farming and the milk business among the rest.

Next the State School started and that upset the help situation, both during consrucion and operation, so that we decided to sell the dairy in 1926 and produce eggs, which could be done with less land and labor.

This worked very well till coccidiosis put us out of business. We did everything known at the time to stop the disease; Bought different stock, raised chicks on new ground and changed the range weekly through the season, but to no avail. We lost $603. one year and $1501. the next, then we quit.

Daisy, on advice of Henry Smith, had invested in an "Investment Trust" which literally vanished over night, in 1929.

We sold the hay standing and I worked up quite a repair business and worked at carpentry. Also spent two or three years checking farms for the Agricultural Adjustment Act.

Bill and Donna were married in 1939 and built their house. I worked on the house with Jene Ham, when I took a day off to attend the Auditor's Meeting of the D. & C., the third week in January 1939. It turned out that I never went back to the house.

The auditors met in the Brick Block Hotel in Millerton. Present were Eisemann, pres.; VanAlstyne, past pres.; Van Tassel; John Warren; the corporate secretary and myself. The corporate secretaxy got dead drunk by noon.

We worked all day and could get no head-or-tail to anything. The Secretary got sobered up in the evening and we asked him where he got the balance on the statement he had printed. He said "I don't know". He had taken it right out of the air.

Right there we quit trying to reconcile his figures and started to consider what was to be done at the Annual Meeting next day. We knew we had to change Secretaries but could find no one suitable, or who could, or would, take the job. Finally about nine P.M. Eisemann said to me, "why

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don't you take it"? I replied that I doubted I was capable. Finally I told them I would give my answer at nine A.M. next morning. I said "yes" and was immediately elected Secretary.

On audit we found $25,000. in the bank, $50,000. unpaid losses and a note at the Springfield Bank for Cooperatives for $34,000., due in two weeks. Also we could not find where the former Secretary had got $14,000. of the $25,000. in the bank. His books showed 121/2 million at risk but the adding machine would only give up 111/2 million.

In 1955 I left the job with about $65,000,000. at risk, $200,000. reserves; The third largest company in the state, of its kind.

Editor's Note: The foregoing article was excerpted from a collection of William A. Benton's writings on the Benton family and their farm life and times. It was kindly offered the Society by Ezra R. Benton of Pleasant Valley for any use we might make of it. Interspersed in this Year Book are miscellaneous articles chosen for variety and as being representative of the collection. A copy of the full 104 pages by William Benton is available at the Society's headquarters in Adriance Memorial Library in Poughkeepsie for those wishing to read more of a fascinating family journal.

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