Wm. H. H. Benefiel

    Wm. H. H. Benefiel, merchant and farmer of Barbersville, Jefferson County, Indiana, was born in Jefferson County, March 8, 1825.

    He is the son of Wm. B. Benefiel, who at the age of 23 years, came from Kentucky to Indiana Territory among the pioneer settlers, and located in the neighborhood of Buchanan's Station (or fort), Jefferson County, in the spring of 1814; and was married, in 1816, to Miss Phoebe Conner, daughter of Lewis Conner, a native of Tennessee, and who emigrated to Indiana Territory prior to 1814.

    George Benefiel and Mary Buchanan Benefiel, father and mother of Wm. B., came, with their family of seven sons and five daughters, to Indiana in the fall of 1814. The seven sons and five daughters all lived to raise large families and to an average age of seventy-three years, reckoning the ages of the deceased at time of death and the living at present age.

    George Benefiel, father of this family of twelve children, was a native of Virginia, and the head of a numerous branch of the Benefiel family, emigrated to Kentucky in early time, and thence to Indiana; was a pioneer of Kentucky and also of Indiana, and did much to improve this State. His descendants are in almost every State and Territory of the United States, and in religion in general adhere to the Presbyterian faith, and in politics uphold the principles of the Republican party.

    Wm. H. H. Benefiel, subject of this sketch, was raised on a farm and educated at the district schools and Hanover College. He was married in 1856, to Marand Johnson, daughter of Wm. Johnson, a native of Kentucky. The result of this union was three children -Nancy A., Wm. T. and Mary A. All are married and live in this (Jefferson) and the adjoining (Ripley) Counties.

    In 1857 he engaged in the dry-good and grocery business, at Barbersville, Jefferson County, Indiana, and has continued in the same business, in the same place, ever since (thirty-two years). He has also carried on farming the greater part of the time. He owns a part of the farm his father owned before Indiana was a State, 290 acres, which is well improved and very productive.

    He was among the first to introduce and advocate the use of commercial fertilizers in his section, and has lived to see the great benefits derived therefrom.

    He belongs to an old Whig family, and at the organization of the Republican party espoused the principles of that, and has been an ardent supporter of that party ever since.

    Mr. Benefiel has been successful in his business, and has accumulated some valuable property.

    He has an uncle and aunt, aged 88 and 80, the last of the original settlers of the twelve brothers and sisters of the second generation of his branch of the Benefiel family.

Source: Biographical and Historical Souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott and Washington, Indiana. By John M. Gresham & Co., 1889.