BENTON 



OSS 



BENZENE 



county seat of Bennington County. It is situ- 

 ated thirty-five miles northeast of Albany, 

 N. Y., and fifty-two miles southwest of Rut- 

 land, Vt., on the New York Central Railroad. 

 Special interest attaches to the place because 

 of its picturesque location at the foot of the 

 Green Mountains and its association with 

 colonial and Revolutionary history. Seth War- 

 ner and Ethan Allen made Bennington their 

 home, and its citizens had much to do with the 

 formation of Vermont as a separate state. The 

 state soldiers' home is located at Bennington 

 village, and in Bennington Centre a monument 

 over 300 feet high has been erected to com- 

 memorate the famous battle. The township is 

 a manufacturing center, with a large output of 

 knit goods, woolens, hosiery, collars and cuffs. 

 Township matters are under the control of a 

 board of selectmen, while each village manages 

 its own local affairs. Population of the town- 

 ship in 1910, 8,698. E.S.H. 



BENTON, THOMAS HART (1782-1858), an 

 American statesman, for thirty years United 

 States Senator for Missouri and an influential 

 factor in every important public question. He 

 was born near Hillsborough, N. C., began to 

 study at the Uni- 

 versity of North 

 Carolina but re- 

 moved to Ten- 

 nessee, and in 

 1811 was admitted 

 to the bar in that 

 state. While hi 

 the Tennessee 

 legislature, to 

 which he was 

 elected in 1809, 

 he became ac- 

 quainted with 

 Andrew Jackson, 

 and in the War of 1812 he joined Jackson's 

 staff. In 1813 a quarrel between these friends 

 led to one of those shooting affrays so common 

 in the frontier country, and both were injured. 

 Not until years afterward were the two reunited 

 in friendship. 



After attaining the rank of lieutenant-colonel 

 in the war, Benton removed to Saint Louis, 

 where he practiced law and founded the Mis- 

 souri Inquirer, a newspaper of pronounced pro- 

 slavery temper. When Missouri was admitted 

 to the Union in 1820 he was elected to the 

 United States Senate, and then began his gen- 

 eration-long term. Intensely loyal to the West 

 and its needs, he worked for the construction 



THOMAS HART BENTON 



of a transcontinental railway and for the open- 

 ing of the mineral lands to settlement. It was 

 in connection with Jackson's fight against the 

 United States Bank that Benton came most 

 prominently before the public, winning by his 

 ardent advocacy of a gold and silver currency 

 the nickname of "Old Bullion." He also took 

 an active part in the Oregon boundary dis- 

 cussion and the disputes over the annexation 

 of Texas, and was entirely in favor of the 

 Mexican War. Having lost his seat in the 

 Senate in 1850 through his opposition to the 

 compromise proposed by Clay, he was elected 

 two years later to the House of Representatives, 

 but in 1854 he retired from public life and com- 

 pleted his great book Thirty Years' View. This 

 has become a valuable historical record. 



BENTON HARBOR, MICH., a city in Berrien 

 County, in the southwestern part of the state, 

 sixty miles northeast across Lake Michigan 

 from Chicago. It is inland one and a half 

 miles from the lake, with which it is connected 

 by ship canal, and is at the junction of the 

 Saint Joseph and Paw Paw rivers. The city 

 has the advantages of Saint Joseph harbor at 

 the mouth of the canal and has steamboat lines 

 to Chicago and Milwaukee. It is served by 

 the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & Saint 

 Louis, the Pere Marquette and the Michigan 

 Central railroads. The population in 1910 was 

 9,185; it was 10,302 in 1914. The area is nearly 

 three square miles. 



Benton Harbor is in the Michigan fruit belt 

 and is one of the largest peach markets in the 

 world. In 1915 the total boat and rail fruit 

 shipments amounted to 10,000 car loads. The 

 exportation of fruit, grain and lumber, fruit 

 packing, cider and vinegar making, fruit evap- 

 orating and manufactories of fruit baskets, 

 spray pumps, lumber and furniture are the im- 

 portant industries. Medicinal water from min- 

 eral springs found in the vicinity is bottled and 

 shipped. Many visitors come directly to the 

 springs. 



The city was settled about 1860. It has sev- 

 eral small parks, several noteworthy bank 

 buildings, a Carnegie Library and a public 

 hospital. H.G.K. 



BENZENE, ben' zene, or BENZOL, ben' 

 zahl, a colorless liquid lighter than water and 

 having a pleasant odor, which burns with a 

 smoky flame. The lighting power of illuminat- 

 ing gas is due in a measure to the benzene it 

 contains. Benzene readily dissolves fats, resins, 

 rubber, sulphur and iodine, and is very impor- 

 tant because of the great number of com- 



