History of Benton: Rising like a phoenix from the Ashes (1865 -1890)
The decades that followed the civil war were defined by both hardship and growth. The Mississippi Delta had been brought to ruin. The many small towns in the region had been burned and depopulated. Levee's that held back the yearly floods had been broken or had fallen into disrepair and the many plantation's that dotted the region had fallen into ruin. The defeat of the Confederate armies in the field had been a very bitter pill for the people of the south to swallow and the ruins of war had left many disheartened and bankrupt.
But the people of the south were determined to rebuild. And so was the tiny town of Benton. The First step in the recovery came in 1876, when a group of leading Yazoo merchants and planters gathered in the home of Robert Clayton Shepherd, a Benton Merchant and selectman. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the formation of a bank to supply capital for the rebounding cotton industry. That was finally starting to thrive again following the devastation of the Civil War. The recovery, while welcome, was also putting a strain on local merchants, who were unable to supply the necessary financing for all the goods required by local farmers to increase production. New capital was urgently needed.
Among those attending was a former Confederate soldier who had turned merchant and farmer. Hershey Alex Brewer Jr. Who had returned to find his hometown of Benton ravaged by the war. Who's grandfather had been among the first to settle the town. He along with his best friend and fellow merchant Noel Pepper Potter and several other merchants raised $50,000 dollars to provide funds for the new bank and to obtain a charter. And on October 11, 1876, Bank of Yazoo opened its doors for business, With Shepherd serving as President, his business Associate Charles Roberts as Vice President and, Noel Pepper Potter as Cashier.
The next big break for Benton came in 1884 when a railroad line was built that connected Yazoo City to Jackson. The railroad also ran through Benton and neighboring Vaughan. With the coming of the railroad the town once more started to boom. The broken streets were repaired and replaced With the coming of the railroad there also came a trickle of new settlers. Jews also started to appear in Benton, many of them came from Russia, Germany, Poland and a few even had traveled from far away Alsace.
These newly arrived Jewish settlers soon established themselves as downtown merchants in the newly rebuilt Benton. Many of those businesses are still open. Lamensdorf's Feed and Seed, was started by Sam Lamensdorf, His great grandson Ed Lamensdorf still owns and operates the store. Henry Rosenthal was another. Rosenthal's Fine Clothing soon became the place to buy dresses and shoes. Rosenthal's wife Jane Rosenthal became quite the civic leader and dressed many beauty queens. Henry Kline soon became the town's favorite doctor.
Others soon followed, though only trickle, their impact on the community was enormous. Leon Fischel, a former confederate soldier from Vicksburg arrived in town and opened up a small jewelry and watch repair shop at the corner of main street. Fischel Jewelry is still in operation today and sells class rings to both the local public and private school. Another Jane Wexler opened up a charm school for the daughters of the bourgeois of the town.
And finally Tim Yolles arrived to open up a small pharmacy. Benton Pharmacy has remained a stable of Benton for years and is the only full line pharmacy in town. The Jewish population by and large was embraced with open arms by the gentile population of Benton.
By 1890 the Jewish population had grown to the point that a congregation was formed. The congregation still exists today as Hebrew Union Congregation. The building of a synagogue was not the only change coming to the town. A newer Episcopal Church was being built where the old one stood. The old one had been torn down as it had been used as a make-shift hospital for wounded Confederates in the Battle of Benton. The church would be a fine, pink and white church.
Benton also was among the first towns in Mississippi to have electricity and running water, Benton Electricity Company was formed in 1886 and provided lights and running water for most of the town. Forty eight electric street lamps were placed on main street. The lights burned all night long, save for the nights of a full moon.
Then in 1887 an ice house was built. The ice house provided a year around supply of ice to the town and cool drinks soon became common. Then in 1888 the telephone arrived, the first line connected the downtown merchants with the ice house. Soon the telephone spread and people even started to phone in their orders. The town was booming with steamboats still docking and trains arriving daily at the newly built Yazoo Valley Depot located in the heart of downtown.
Downtown was also undergoing changes. Gone were the wooden buildings of a generation ago. Now a fine brick building dotted the lots. Everything was brick it seemed. Many of those buildings can still be seen today. Everything was new, a new post office replaced the shaggy looking one. A park was set aside toward the north end of main. The park was in a triangle-like shape as land it encompassed was bordered by Percy Street and North Main.
And so Benton was booming. It had taken twenty five years, but the town had rebuilt itself. But as more and more of the bottom land was cleared away and more and more people flocked into Benton, many of them from the Red Clay Region of the state and the coal mining regions of Alabama and the clay hills of Georgia the town started to change. There was something strange about these people. Many of them had 'Gifts' if you believe the local lore. They came by the train load, they always settled together and always stuck together. And for some, the town of Benton was changing too fast, they wanted a return to the old ways.
History of Benton: Nova Benton ( 1890 – 1910)
The years leading up to the First World War are considered the golden age of Benton. A steady stream of settlers poured into the region. A new levee meant that the rich bottomlands that bordered the Big Black could finally be cleared away and brought under the plow Another neighborhood was built east of town along the gentle stream called Deer Creek. The soil in that area was very rich and fine and produced a number of gardens. The Nova rich of the town settled along that area and built fine Victorian style homes. The area was christened “The Garden District'' Because of its many fine gardens.
Soon other districts were settled. The newly established merchant classes moved beyond the traditional settlements and into the untouched areas. As Benton moved beyond the old bounds and into the untouched surrounding lands. A new, faster way to connect the outlying neighborhoods with the center business district arose. And so in 1901 the Municipal Street Railway came into being. The railway started with two cars, one open air for use in the hot summer months and one enclosed for the winter months. The City Commissioners were also appointed as Manager T.E. Polockington, Polockington had also served as superintendent of construction during the building of the line.
The lined had at first four and a half miles of rail, it was later expanded to fourteen. The line ran the length of main street, looped down Croft street, then Town Creek and Wilson Street before circling back into main. Then it branched off from main and ran the whole length of The Garden District before branching off again to go down the developing section of town known as Grand.
Three years later another major breakthrough was achieved. A brand new school was built at the corner of main street. The school was a state of the art school. The school was named Benton Main Street School and would house grades fourth through eight and would teach the subjects of Science, Math, History, English and even offered vocational courses.
Later that year the town saw the opening of another school, this one a high school. Benton Agricultural High School at its opening was held as the best equipped public school in Mississippi with a whopping thirty three dollars being spent on the education of each student. A fortune in those days when a house could be brought for seven hundred dollars. Students learned not only the sciences, but also Greek, Latin and the Bible. A world class vocation center was also added.
And again later that year the town saw the opening of its first public library. The library was named Albert Sidney Johnston Memorial Library after the confederate general who commanded southern forces in the Battle of Benton. The library was built across from the newly build Main Street School and the Post Office and a few blocks down from the newly built Episcopal Church
Then in 1908 a statue honoring the memory of the confederate slain and the woman who supported them was unveiled. Three hundred surviving confederate veterans marched down main street. As they marched, the townspeople crowded the sidewalks and cheered and hooted. The parade stopped in front of the statue and the president of the Daughters of the Confederacy surrounded by dozens and dozens other members all bowed to the old fighting men and laid in their hands a bundle of flowers.
The Confederate Monument was then called was located on the triangle grounds in Benton, it stood twenty four foot tall, its base and pedestal were of granite and it was topped with two bronze figures. One of those figures was a Confederate Soldier and the other a woman holding a flag.
And so it seemed that at last Benton had risen fully from the ashes. With two fine new schools, new churches, a busy railroad. A bustling downtown, a thriving bank and neighborhood's filled with fine cottages and houses. The town was thriving. But their two sides to every coin. There was a different Benton. One that was not so thriving and one that was not so well off. A darker, more dangerous side of town that was best avoided.
Two miles west of town was an area called “Greasy Row” because of the number of saloons, barrelhouses, gambling houses, music halls and whore houses that infested the area. Here the men who worked on the railroad, on the river, in the saw mills and at the docks would gather after the working day to spend all their money. Shooting was too common, killing too. But there was something alluring about the area. A special brand of the “The Blues'' was starting to develop in this area.
On nights of the full moon, one could hear the soulful cries of the mostly black performers wailing into the hot and humid air. The narrow, often muddy and smelly streets would be filled with men stumbling back and forth, often too drunk to stand and not drunk enough to go home. The shacks that lined the street would be filled with cigarette smoke and pipe smoke. The sour smell of urine would be everywhere as men often relieved themselves outside in the open. Narrow ditches ran alongside the unpaved streets, these ditches were filled with rain water, and as one old timer recalled years later.
“The whole thing just stunk. Broken whiskey bottles lined the side of the streets, broken barrels cluttered the roads, the roads were unpaved and mostly dirt. People would just piss and shit in the middle of the road and the piss and shit would mix with the dirt and in the summer the smell would be of utter hell. The ditches were often filled with rainwater. Crawfish, snakes and bullfrogs often lived in them. The ditches too were often filled with empty whiskey bottles, discarded knives, pipes and all manner of trash. I think God took one look at that place and just looked away. Hell, Benton at the time only had ten policemen to patrol the whole town. It would have taken a whole damn army to clear out that wreck, everybody had a pistol or a knife on them.”
The men who visited “Greasy Row” often carried long knives with them. They would use these knives to cut each other or rob one another. Often the bodies of those who were killed never saw the light of day. Gators and the swift currents of the Big Black often hid them. And those who did not end up as Gator feet or resting at the bottom of the big black. Were often left to decay in the street. This was a world unto itself. And as long as it kept money flowing into the hands of the rich and kept the poor workers happy. The powers of be were often more than happy to turn a blind eye to what happened in that pit of sin and vice only a stone's throw from their nice little town.
History of Benton: A town of Culture, the First World War and the Rise of the Ku Klux Klan (1910 - 1920
Disclaimer: This chapter of “The History of Benton” deals with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. Because the author wishes to deal fairly with this matter. And wants to present a very accurate picture of that time and place the author is not shying away from strong words that might be offensive to some people. The views presented here are not of the authors. But were only written so the darkest period of the township can be brought to light. The author feels that honest is the best policy and that only being honest can we achieve growth. The author hopes you the reader will understand this.
In 1910 the township of Benton welcomed a new hospital, the hospital was a state of the art, modern hospital that boasted one hundred rooms. A staff of four highly trained down and twelve skilled nurses. The hospital was located in the heart of the thriving “Garden District”. The hospital was named “King's Daughters Hospital” after the charitable organization that had brought the land, and raised funds for the construction and oversaw the work.
The following year of 1911 saw another milestone of the township being reached. The Freemasons established a lodge in Benton. Lodge No. 48. Later that same year the local Methodist Church organized a local boy scout troop to educate the young men of the town. The town had grown in both modern day convinces, population and now it seemed in culture. Benton was considered by many to be a thriving little town, a mini Yazoo City. But things started to change. Darker days were in store for Benton a storm was once more starting to brew. A storm that would test the moral fabric of the town. And strain the friendship of many of the older more settled families.
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand cut little ice in the small town. June 28, 1914 was just another day for the people of Benton. Nobody cared much about Europe and only the wealthy planters of the area traveled there. But on August 4, 1914 when the The British Empire declared war on the German Empire, all the church bells in Benton started to ring. The churches were once more filled with people as they rushed to fill the pews and pray for peace and offer their prayers. America was not a war, but its neighbor to the north was. And so a plan was hatched among the young men of the town. They would band together and travel north, and then cross into Canada and once there they would enlist in their armed forces.
Many of these young men considered the war a grand adventure, a chance to prove themselves in a battle. A chance that came only once in a generation. Many had grown up listening to fireside stories of battles told to them by their grandfathers about the American Civil War, and their fathers too about the Spanish American War. Many considered this war a chance, a chance to prove themselves worthy of the family a name. They would not let this once in a lifetime chance slip through their fingers.
And so around one hundred young men from Benton, most Episcopalians and Roman Catholics left for Vicksburg were many like minded fellows were gathering from all across the Delta. All told around twelve hundred young men left their settled homes in the Delta for Canada, they came not only from tiny Benton, but from Rolling Fork, Greenville, Yazoo City, Jackson, Belzoni, Leland and Vicksburg.
Churches as St. George in Yazoo City, St. John the Blind in Leland, St. Thomas of Greece in Belzoni, St. Katherine's in Vicksburg, and even tiny St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Benton, all Episcopal churches gave up the flower of their congregations to service of freedom. The Catholic churches too responded to the call. St. Mark's in Greenville, St. Leo in Leland, All Saint's in Belzoni, St. Paul in Vicksburg, St. Mary's in Yazoo City and All Saints in Benton too gave up the flower of their congregations to serve the Empire so far away.
What became of these twelve hundred men. Nobody really knows. A handful returned home with a chest full of metals, many though vanished into the fog of war, never to be heard from again. Among those who left home was a young lawyer named James Christopher Potter. A young man who in the years to come would find himself fighting a war of shadows. Going to war with him was his best friend.
A son of a local planter. Albert Jones Brewer. Who in the coming war of shadow would fight alongside him and remain loyal to him through shadow of the years to come. Another young man, James Alexander Bell, a shy fellow, unfit for war, pale with bright pink eyes joined the band. His dream was not battlefield glory, but the Episcopal Priesthood. His Father had forced him to join, hoping to war would toughen his son and make a man out of him. The latter was noted for holding Episcopal Services under fire and would thrice decorated for bravery under fire. He too would stand beside his friends in the coming fight.
While the world bleed in the muddy fields of France. Chances were taking place in Benton. On February 8, 1915 The Birth of a Nation, a silent drama film that was directed by D.W Griffith that also starred Lilliam Gish premiered at the DixieLand Place. Benton's only playhouse. Tickets to the film cost a whopping two dollars per ticket and the show ran for a unheard of three and a half hours. The film glorified the Ku Klux Klan and gave fuel to the growing “Lost Cause” ideology that was already taking root in the minds of many southerns.
And so while volunteers from the Delta bleed on the Western Front. Other Delta men dawned white sheets and loose fitting cloth masks and started to ride around the countryside. Houses were burned, crosses were set ablaze, lynchings, floggings and hanging became all too common. The goal of the Klan was to “Clean Benton Up!” as one Klan newspaper promised. “A return to old Southern values. Of a simpler, better way of life. Like the one we enjoyed before the Civil War and before the wrath of the North was released upon our humble homesteads” read one pamphlet that was published by the Klan and handed out at the annual country fair.
Klan propaganda also promised to, “Put the Irish, the German's, Italian's, Jews in their place and let them stay there. We are going to clean this town up. We are going to put a halt to boys who take them girls car riding. We are going to close all those dance halls, all those pool halls, all those saloons. We are going to enforce the ban of trading on the Sabbath. We are here to promote a peaceful town, one that is full of God fearing men and women.”
Then on May 7, 1915 the Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine. 1, 195 people were killed in the sinking. Including 128 Americans. The death of so many innocent civilians at the hands of the Imperial Underwater German Navy galvanized American support for entering into the war on the Allies side. And soon war was indeed declared. News of war being declared brought a brief moment of peace to Benton
The townspeople put aside their differences and shifted all their energies to “Defeating the Hun!” And for a blessed moment all the Klan Madness was forgotten about.
Once more the difference between Northern and Southern had been forgotten, once more the country was united behind a common goal. America's army was remodeled, volunteers streamed into training centers all across the country. Farm boys, shopkeepers, steel mill workers and construction works all flocked to the colors. The name given to this collection of forces was The American Expeditionary Force, The force left for Europe on September 12, 1915 and was in the front lines a few months later. The force fought well under its commander General John J. Pershing and launched many more offensives as an independent army.
The “Forces” as it was nicknamed fought well alongside its battle hardened allies the French and the British. And in the end turned the tide of war. Fitting enough many of the early volunteers who had left Benton at the outbreak of the war were allowed to join their countrymen, these handful of men, who had endured some of the hardest fighting quickly rose through the ranks. Many of them received commissions and served as officers. Of the three mentioned above James Christopher Potter was commissioned and rose to the rank of Captain. Noel Brewer was commissioned and also rose the rank of Captain. And James Bell, who was the last to be commissioned but rose the furthest reached the rank of Major.
The German Empire formally surrendered on November 11, 1918 and all the nations agreed to a cease fire while the terms of peace were being negotiated. Then On June 28, 1919, The German Empire and the Allied Nations (including The British Empire, The French Empire, Italy, The Russian Empire and The United States of America) signed the Treaty of Versailles formally ending the war to end all wars.
And so Potter, Brewer and Bell returned home to find the world they left changed. With the return of peace, the Klan Madness returned. And a long shadow had been cast over the township of Benton and the surrounding tiny farms and settlements. And upon their weary shoulders would the cause of Fighting the Klan fall. And so Potter, Brewer and Bell would come together and swear an oath, an oath that would bind the three families together, and forge a bind that endures to this day.
The long shadow of the Klan (1920 – 1924)
The rise of the Klan did not go unchallenged. All across the Delta leading families of the old planter class united together to defeat the Klan or at the very least hold them at bay. And in the end, only the rising of the Mississippi River in the spring of nineteen twenty seven secured victory for the anti-Klan Forces, as the breaking of a dozen or so levees once more forced this fragmented region to pull itself together again. And face with trembling knees the wrath of nature.
The Klan started in the hills that surrounded the Delta. Benton like Yazoo City has always straddled the two regions. The differences between the two are like daylight and dark. The Delta is home to numerous plantations that yield millions of dollars each year in cotton. The hill farmers though, mostly scratched a living and barely made it from one planting to the next. A few of them could afford to plant Cotton, and many did in the bottomlands of the many creeks and rivers.
Cotton defined the region, the growing of cotton, the harvesting of cotton, the grinning of cotton, the baling of cotton and the transportation of cotton were all vital to Delta. The wealth generated from the annual cotton crop made millionaires of the plantation owners, who could afford to travel yearly and often sent their sons to Harvard or Swanee. Many of these plantation owners were also “High Church” Episcopalians. Episcopalians have always numbered in the minority in the Delta. To this class the Klan was something to be looked down upon, and squashed out.
On the other side you had the poor hill farmer, who's life depended on the rain and luck. Since he could not afford to hire help, he had to make his own help and he often raised a brood of children to help work his small holding. He considered the Klan a force of positive change and it was often him that dawned the white sheets and went riding at midnight up and down the country lanes.
Between these two classes. There was another class. The town-dwellers, trained and skilled labors who had attended some formal education. Doctors, dentists, merchants, craftsmen, bankers, clerks, and priests and preachers.
Now the first signs of trouble did not take place in Benton in the river front town of Satartia some fifty seven miles west of Benton. Now, Satartia had been built as a river port to ship cotton from a very large and prosperous plantation called “No Mistake Plantation” Who's owner was named Brian Bright. The Bright family owned most of the surrounding farmland and often rented it out to tenants. Most of these tenants happen to be newly arrived Italians who spoke little or no English and worst of all many if not all of them were Roman Catholic.
The present of these strangers caused mummer of discomfort to run through the tiny village of Satartia, a budding stronghold of the Klan in Yazoo County. The local leader wanting to make a name for himself lead a column of hooded men into a Mass that was being held and ordered the priest to leave and the church closed. The gathered crowd responded in kind and pounced on the column and bumbled them with their fist and and rained kicks down upon their head. After fifteen minutes the column sounded return and retreated with the crowd following them, as they rushed to their horse's the crowded picked up wash rocks and tossed it at the hooded men, stones the size of men's fist fell down upon the men's head, knocking many off their horses.
At first it seemed like the small Italian colony had won an impressive victory, but a few days later the church was burned down and the young priest who was ministering the tiny colony was found dead in his bed. A bullet to the head had ended his life. That was troubling enough on its own but the trouble was just getting started.
In Yazoo City, the county seat, the Catholic church was also firebombed. The Pro-Klan “The Yazoo Herald'' did not report the bombing of either churches or the death of the young priest. But a small, independent paper did report on the bombing and the killings. The office of the paper was in turn firebombed.
In Vicksburg, The Bell's, took a firm stand when the Klan tried to push into the city. James William Bell, now an Anglican priest took a stand and used his position as a priest to voice his concerns. He condemned openly those who supported the Klan on the City council and poured fire down upon the heads of those in his church who supported the Klan. So fearsome were his attacks that a group of parishioners who supported the Klan broke off and formed another Episcopal Church, Christ Church, the church still endures to this day but is known for being very “Low Church” while St. Katherine's is known for being “High Church''.
Closer to home in Benton though, Klan Activity started to be noticed. It came on slowly like a fever, the once friendly town turned on itself. Before the coming of the Klan, people use to linger by the soda fountain and catch up on idle town gossip. Now the soda fountains seemed barren, and nobody dared to visit them. People did not stay to eat their hamburgers, fries and enjoy their sodas, they took it on the run. Nobody spoke around the cooler at work, or around the Coke-Cola tub at the local hardware stores or at the general store.
Everybody looked over their shoulders. The first signs of trouble came when the town's Catholics, a bid more plentiful than Episcopalians but not as numerous as the Baptist were dismissed from their employment. Accounts on Catholic families were closed down. And many Protestant merchants refused to trade with Catholic clients. Only the Potter, Croft and Brewer families refused to follow the trend.
Then came darkness. At Oak Grove Plantation, a sprawling estate located fifteen miles east of town something happened. A black man by the name of John Smith was lynched after he supposedly whistled at a white woman in town. The manager of the plantation, a mean fellow by the Nick Jean is said to to have witnessed the lynching but failed to report it to either the police department or to owner John William Sharp III, who was away at the time, hunting quail in nearby Arkansas with his good friend LeRoy Percy of the Greenville Percy's.
The lynching sent shock waves through the town. Their had not been a lynching in Benton since before the civil war. The Sharp family had kept a tight lid on things. But now it seemed their power was starting to wane. When Mr. Sharp returned from his hunt, he was both shocked and angered and at once fired Nick Jean.
A few nights later, Oak Grove Plantation was the scene of the largest Klan raid this side of the Mississippi River. One hundred horsemen all dressed in white stormed the estate, they set fire to the railroad depot and burned several hundred bales of cotton. The bales of cotton burned brightly into the night. The gin was also burned to the ground and several tenant houses were sacked and burned, only the main house escaped harm. And that because of John William Sharp, his older brother Noel and his younger brother Adam, along with LeRoy Percy, and his only son William Percy, put up a spirited defense and shot down several of the attackers as they neared the house.
The first rays of morning revealed a scene of total destruction, fourteen of the thirty tenant houses had been burned down to the ground. The new railway depot was a smothering pile of burning wood, the smothering remains of countless bales of cotton dotted the railroad as well as the burning remains of a dozen flat cars, the gin was a total loss. All told the damage came to around three million dollars. In the number of human death's fourteen tenant farmers had been killed and twenty of the raiding Klan's men were found dead. Some it seemed had been pulled from their horses and hacked to death with shoves, and axes.
The news of the raid shocked not only the tiny township of Benton, but Mississippi as a whole, and then the nation. But the story died on the vine as it were. None of the regional newspapers reported on it. All but on a tiny news paper out of Benton. A few days following the pattern so well established the Klan once more firebombed that paper, punishment for speaking out.
And so as 1924 drew to a close, James Christopher Potter said best of all. “The shadow of the Klan is growing stronger with each passing second. That shadow has covered not only Benton, the whole of Mississippi and has grown beyond that. It now covers not only the southern states, but also the northern states, and even the western states. It's a dark cloud that hangs over the nation. It's all we can do to just keep the Klan at bay. We must keep fighting, for the darkest days I'm afraid lay just ahead of us. If that is the case then, we'll do well to remember that it's always the darkest before dawn.”
Here ends the first volume of The Benton Historia that covers the years 1820 to 1924. The first volume covers the first one hundred and four years of the settlement. And Chronicles the the growth of the town from tiny river port settlement, to the first county seat of Yazoo County, the depression that followed the moving of the county seat from Benton to Yazoo City, the Antebellum Period, the Civil War, the Reconstruction and finally the Rise of the Klan.