History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Thomas H. Benton
THOMAS H. BENTON, JR., was a nephew of the great Missouri statesman whose name he bore. He was born in Williamson County, Tennessee, on the 5th of September, 1816. His education was acquired at Huntington Academy and he graduated from Marion College, Missouri. In 1839 he located at Dubuque, Iowa, where he taught school and afterwards became a merchant. In 1846 he was elected to the Senate of the First General Assembly, two years later elected on the Democratic ticket Superintendent of Public Instruction and was reëlected, serving six years. Mr. Benton became a resident of Council Bluffs and was chosen Secretary of the State Board of Education in 1858, serving four years. In 1862 he was appointed colonel of the Twenty-ninth Iowa Volunteer Infantry, served during the war and in 1865 was brevetted Brigadier-General. In 1865 he was the Democratic and anti-negro suffrage candidate for Governor but was defeated. In 1866 he became a supporter of President Johnson after the latter left the Republican party and in August was appointed by the President Assessor of Internal Revenue in place of the Republican incumbent removed. He died in St. Louis on the 10th of April, 1879.