Georgia:  Oglethorpe County:  Obituary of Rev. Benjamin Blanton 
18 November 1845

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Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord 

For the Southern Christian Advocate

The Reverend Benjamin Blanton died recently at his residence in 
Oglethorpe County Ga.He was born in 1765. In 1788 he became a member of 
the M.E.Church. In 1790 he was admitted into the traveling connection and 
was appointed to the Bote--tourt circuit; 1791 to Franklin; 1792 to 
Portsmouth; 1793 to Camden; 1794 to Brunswick; 1795 to Greenville; 1796 
he was stationed in Charleston S.C. and in 1797 in Charleston and 
Georgetown. The three following years he was presiding elder on a 
district which embraced the greater part of South Carolina and Georgia, 
extending as the minutes show, to Natchez.  He then located and so 
continued, laboring usefully as he had opportunity untill some six or 
seven years ago when he applied to the Georgia conference for 
readmission.  He was readmittied and his name placed on superannuated 
list, where it now stands.  This step he took --- his own language,that 
he might “die with us”.

For several years passing he has been the subject of much affliction of 
the body.  For some time before his death his feet were so diseased that 
he could not walk,diseased in the eyes produced total blindness.He was so 
deaf it was next to impossible to make him understand anything that
was said to him.  His mind in great mercy God preserved to him to the 
last, not altogether possesed of its former spritfullness but good. 

Father Blanton in his best days possesed a strong body, good 
constitution, a sound mind, good judgement and practical sence,
combined with grat energy and enterprise.  As a christian he was devout, 
sincere, ardent, and attended all private duties with great uniformity. 
His worthy son, who lived in the house with his father up untill the time 
of his death, in a note since addressed to me writes thus;
his custom as far back as I can remember, was to hold family prayers, 
night and morning and I cannot remember any time it was neglected if he 
was at home.  For several years when his strength failed he preformed 
this worship in a sitting posture, and often lying in the bed. His 
practice for years pasts has been to spend fifteen to thirty miniutes in 
secret prayer late in the evening, at which time he would pray for a 
great many persons of his acquaintence, calling them by name to which I 
have frequently listened as by approaching near his voice was frequently 
so audible that he could be heard at a short distance.

As a preacher, although there was not that depth of thought and studied 
connection which characterized the preaching of some men, yet there was 
much that was brilliant and sprightly, and an aptness to teach which 
greatly interested and benefitted his hearers. His voice was audible and 
full-toned, his appearence manly and commanding; his gestures
unaffected; his every sentence impressive. In the days of his strength 
and vigor, great power attended his ministry, and few men in the same 
length of time ever had more souls to their ministry, more “epistles 
known and read of all men” Than did Benjamin Blanton
during the ten years in which he was an itinerant preacher. Some of these 
are now doubtless with him in heaven,and many yet live to praise God on 
earth that they ever heard this Southern pioneer preach christ crucified. 

A few weeks before his departure I called to see him and spent a few 
hours with him. I found him truly emaciated with age and disease,
but surprised to find his mind and memory good, especially so when 
religious subjects were introduced. I coversed, however, but little with 
him as he was so deaf that I had to depend on entirely on another (a 
negro boy) to make him hear and understand a short sentence, or even a 
word.  His son had the last conversation with him in relation to his 
future prospects, a few weeks before he died, and when ask by him what 
his prospects were, he said,”I am about ready to go”.  In the morning of 
the day he died it was remembered by the family that his prayer was of 
unusual length and ferverency.  Soon his speech failed him; and so 
crushed by the weight of four score years, much toil and many diseases, 
he fell as the grass before a mowers scythe for heaven.



Athens, Ga.
Nov.18, 1845 William J.Parks