Benton, Samuel Austin

Benton, Samuel Austin a Congregational minister, was born at Waterford, Vt., May 3, 1807. He worked upon a farm until twenty-one years of age, but afterwards pursued academical studies and entered Amherst College, and subsequently Middlebury, where he graduated in 1836. After teaching two years in the academy at Randolph, Vt., he supplied the Church in Stafford ten months, and was ordained at Saxton's River, Vt., in 1840. From 1842 to 1855 he labored in Michigan, under the Home Missionary Society, and the eight years following was pastor at Anamosa, Ia. He then received a commission as chaplain of the 31st Iowa regiment, and remained in that service till the close of the war. He died in Barnet, Vt., Nov. 19, 1864. Mr. Benton was "a ready and powerful speaker, and his labors among the Western churches were greatly blessed." See Cong. Quarterly, 1866, p. 208.