Lemuel Benton Bio:
BENTON, Lemuel -
(great-grandfather of George William Dargan), a Representative from South
Carolina; born in Granville County, N.C., in 1754; as a young man moved to that section of
Cheraw District which is now Darlington County, S.C., engaged as a planter and
subsequently became an extensive landowner; elected major of the Cheraw Regiment in 1777
and served throughout the Revolutionary War, being promoted to the rank of colonel in
1781; resigned his commission in 1794; member of the State house of representatives
1781-1784 and 1787; county court justice of Darlington County in 1785 and 1791; escheator
of Cheraw District (composed of what is now Chesterfield, Darlington, and Marlboro
Counties) in 1787; delegate to the State convention at Charleston that ratified the
Federal Constitution in 1788; sheriff of Cheraw District in 1789 and 1791; delegate to the
State constitutional convention at Columbia in 1790; elected as a Democrat to the Third,
Fourth, and Fifth Congresses (March 4, 1793-March 3, 1799); unsuccessful candidate for
reelection in 1798 to the Sixth Congress; resumed agricultural pursuits; died in
Darlington, Darlington County, S.C., May 18, 1818; interment on his estate, "Stony
Hill," near Darlington, S.C.
Source:
Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1949
page 843
|