H. A. Benson’s Farm
H. A. Benson, (b. ca. 1836), was an ordinary boy growing up in Old Pelham in the mid-eighteen-hundreds. His mother, Content Adam Benson and father, Danforth Benson Sr., raised him on the now-torn-down and flooded, Benson Farm. His brother, Danforth Jr. (b. 1820), and his wife, Frinda Phillips Benson, came to live there in the 1840s. Soon after, in the 1850s, Danforth Sr.’s brother, Williard Benson and his wife, Matilda Benson, moved in with the other residents of the farm and dwelled there until their deaths in 1865 and 1878. This house that so many so many people lived in can now be seen as only a cellar hole along Gate 12 Middle Road. Later, H. A. Benson presented an important manuscript of the town’s neighborhood to the Pelham Old Home Association. This is to this day it is an important reference to historians studying Old Pelham history.
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