Mortimer Murray Benton

Mortimer Murray Benton was born January 21, 1807, in his ancestral town, Benton, Ontario County, New York, and emigrated in 1816 to Franklin County, Indiana, with his father, Joseph Benton. The latter was afterwards a citizen of Ohio for some years, and died at the residence of his son in Covington, Kentucky, June, 1872, aged 89; his venerable widow still survives (March, 1873,) the ripe age of 86. The son's education, obtained in the schools of the neighborhood, was rather limited. One of his teachers in New York, Simeon H. Goss, became so noted for his severity in punishing his pupils as to give rise to the expression which has become almost a national by-word, "Give him Goss." Carefully improving his meager opportunities, young Benton began the study of law in Indiana with that eminent lawyer Andrew Wallace, and continued it in Cincinnati with Caswell and Starr. "Removing to Covington in 1828, he concluded his studies with and in 1831 became the law-partner of the late Jefferson Phelps. What Mr. Phelps was then, Mr. Benton for years past has been, the leader of the bar at Covington. Time has dealt gently with Mr. Benton. Of all his early cotemporaries, but one (James M. Preston, of Burlington, Boone County) still lives. The entire court, judges, lawyers, both resident and visiting, clerks, sheriffs, jailers, and their deputies, one by one has obeyed the summons of the inevitable sheriff. Death, and in solemn procession is moving on to the presence of the final Judge of all the earth!

In 1834 Covington became a city, with Mr. Benton as its first mayor. He resigned in 1835. In 1853, having been a director and its attorney from its commencement in 1850, he accepted the presidency of the Covington and Lexington railroad, resigning in 1856, after the great work had struggled to a glorious success. He was a representative in the Kentucky legislature, 1863-65, and by the same controlling Union element elected to the senate, 1865-69; but his seat having been contested by John G. Carlisle, now lieutenant governor, the senate declared his election the result of military interference, vacated the seat, and ordered a new election in 1866, at which Mr. Benton was defeated. In 1864 he was the Union candidate in the second district for judge of the court of appeals, an office he would have adorned by his fine legal mind; but the indiscreet zeal of a few friends, backed by the high-handed tyranny of the military in ordering the peremptory withdrawal from the canvass of his opponent. Judge Alvin Duvall, the then incumbent, and attempting his arrest, worked the signal defeat of Mr. Benton. Many Union men revolted at this phase of military interference, and by the free use of the telegraph and horse expresses only a few hours before the election, sprung upon the track a great man, of undoubted Union antecedents, the former chief justice, Geo. Robertson, and accomplished his election, thus sacrificing, "in the house of his friends," their own chosen candidate. It was a painful alternative, but they could not brook the assumptions of military power. Forty-two years constant and lucrative practice have not dimmed the ardor if Mr. Benton in the noble profession, and he bids fair to practice it a score of years longer, and then to wear out with the harness on.


Source: History of Kentucky, Volume II, by Lewis Collins, Published by Collins & Company,
Covington, Kentucky, 1874