Captain Robert Benham

Captain Robert Benham (November 17, 1750 – February 6, 1809), was a frontier pioneer, served in local government and was a member of the first elected legislature for the State in Ohio, 1799 & 1800.

Benham was born in Monmouth County, New Jersey - the son of Peter Benham (1724-1780) and Ann James (d. 1758). After the death of his mother, he and his siblings, John, Richard, Amey, Peter and Catherine, were taken by his father and stepmother to be baptized at the Old Tennent Church in Manalapan Township, New Jersey May 31, 1759. After the removal of his father and step mother to Loudoun County, Virginia, Robert Benham and his siblings were reared by their maternal grandfather, Robert James. His father was a lineal descendant of John Benham who settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1630 and later removed to New Haven, Connecticut where he was one of its founders. John Benham's son, Joseph, was married to Winifred King; the great great grandmother of Robert Benham who along with her daughter (also Winifred), was brought up on charges of witchcraft in 1697 in Wallingford, Connecticut. In 1692, Winifred's mother also appeared at a preliminary trial infamously known as the Salem Witch Trials. The charges, in all three cases, were fortunately dismissed. Robert Benham and his wife, Elizabeth Miller, had ten children who were born in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky. He was as an early settler of Washington County, Pennsylvania, Newport, Kentucky and Hamilton County, Ohio. He later removed to Warren County, Ohio where he died in 1809.

His service in connection with the military made him well-known to Colonel David Rogers, General Harmar, General Arthur St. Clair and Mad Anthony Wayne.

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