Multnomah-Umatilla County OR Archives Biographies.....Benson, Thomas Cooper March 16, 1853 - 
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Ila Wakley iwakley@msn.com February 15, 2011, 3:24 pm

Source: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. III, Published 1928, Pages 969 - 970
Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

     THOMAS COOPER BENSON.  The spirit of true Oregonian hospitality reigns 
supreme in the attractive and beautiful home of Thomas Cooper Benson at 69 
West Terry street in Portland. There he and his wife always keep open house 
for their many friends, the circle of which includes many of the older 
residents as well as the later arrivals in Oregon. Mr. Benson has the 
distinction of being the pioneer live stock commission man at the Portland 
Union Stock Yards and he is not only thoroughly familiar with every phase of 
live stock operations here but is equally well acquainted with many events 
which have had to do with shaping the history and promoting the development of 
this section of the country. A native of Missouri, he was born in Trenton, 
Grundy county, March 16, 1853, a son of Jesse Boston and Emily Elizabeth 
(White) Benson. His father, who was born in Baltimore, Maryland, served in the 
Mexican war and in Missouri wedded Emily Elizabeth White, a native of the 
state of Kentucky.

     Thomas C. Benson accompanied his parents to Oregon when a lad of eleven 
years, the journey being made across the plains with ox teams, his father 
serving as the captain of a long train of covered wagons. The educational 
opportunities accorded Thomas C. Benson were meager. He attended the early 
schools of eastern Oregon, but the state had by no means reached its high 
standards of educational development of the present day. However, Mr. Benson 
made use of every opportunity to broaden his knowledge and through general 
reading and wide experience has become an exceptionally well informed man, 
giving out of his rich stores of wisdom and experience for the benefit of 
others. He early began to provide for his own support and for some time was in 
the employ of the firm of O'Shea Brothers, composed of John F. and James B. 
O'Shea. In course of time these brothers organized the Union Meat Company, 
which at a later period sold out to Swift & Company, Mr. Benson continuing in 
the employ of these different companies for a period of nine years. He also 
became thoroughly familiar with farming and stock raising in eastern Oregon 
during early manhood and the knowledge which he gained with the above 
mentioned firms also fitted him for the activities which he was later to 
assume. When the Portland Union Stock Yards Company was established he 
organized the Benson Commission Company and entered the live stock commission 
business upon the organization of the Portland Union Stock Yards Company about 
twenty years ago. The Benson Commission Company became widely known through 
their successful operations as dealers in live stock, a business of gratifying 
proportions being built up. While Thomas C. Benson has retired from active 
participation in the management of the business, it is still carried on by his 
youngest son, Arthur R. Benson, and Lyman B. Miller, who assumed charge in 
1924. Since then the Benson Commission Company has established a live stock 
commission business in South San Francisco, California. Throughout his entire 
life Thomas C. Benson has carefully formulated his plans and has been prompt 
in their execution. Whatever he has undertaken he has brought to successful 
conclusion, overcoming obstacles and difficulties by determined purpose, while 
at all times his business activities have measured up to the highest standards 
of progress and of honor.

      On the 2d of May, 1875, at Umatilla Meadows, Oregon, Mr. Benson was 
married to Miss Sarah Ellen Robbins, who was born at Salem Prairie, Marion 
county, Oregon, a daughter of Jacob and Sarah (Spillman) Robbins, both of whom 
were natives of Kentucky, while their marriage was celebrated in Indiana. The 
mother was of Welsh lineage. Jacob Robbins was a second cousin of Abraham 
Lincoln and they were playmates in Kentucky. He was born on the plantation of 
Colonel J. C. Breckinridge in Breckinridge county, Kentucky, in 1809 and when 
he was two years of age his father headed a colony that crossed the Ohio river 
into Indiana, where amid pioneer conditions he established a home. When the 
Indians went upon the war path, incited by British subjects, in 1812, the 
Robbins family was one of only two of about forty families in that locality 
that escaped the treachery of the red men. Knowing something of the Indian 
nature, the grandfather one night, sleepless on account of his fears, saw that 
the Indians were burning homes of other settlers and immediately fled with his 
family back to Kentucky, at which time Jacob Robbins was five years of age. 
About that time he was bound out to a relative, for whom he worked for three 
years, receiving but little clothing and only three days' schooling during 
that period. He then resolved to run away and finally located the Lincoln 
family, but they, too, were poor and he realized that he must not be a burden 
to them. Carefully thinking out his plans, he confided them to his cousin, 
Abraham Lincoln. The plan was to seek out his uncle, Billie Robbins, who he 
knew lived near a little town called Greensburg in Indiana and who had been a 
Revolutionary war soldier, serving in the battle of Bunker Hill. This boy of 
little more than eight years started alone through a largely unsettled 
wilderness to find the uncle and after almost incredible hardships and 
privations reached his destination. There he was cared for by his aunt and 
uncle, aiding in the work of the farm. Later he worked for his uncle's oldest 
son, Nathaniel Robbins, who was later a member of the constitutional 
convention of Oregon and with whom Jacob Robbins remained until he was about 
twenty years of age. He then established a home of his own and a little later, 
on the 23d of March, 1833, married Sarah Spillman. Mrs. Benson was one of 
their ten children. She was educated in the district schools and by her 
marriage she became the mother of four children: Jesse Alvin, who is a 
stockman residing in Pendleton, Oregon; Emma Edith, the wife of Ernest 
Pennock, who is employed as bookkeeper by the Benson Commission Company of 
Portland; Elma Alice, the wife of A. W. Rugg, a farmer and stock raiser who is 
also interested in a bank at Pendleton, Oregon, where he resides; and Arthur 
Robbins, who is mentioned at length on another page of this work. There are 
also four grandchildren.

     In his political views Mr. Benson is a democrat and fraternally is a 
charter member of Cascade Lodge, I. O. O. F., of Cascade Locks, Oregon. 
Throughout his entire life he has followed the Golden Rule, doing unto others 
as he would have them do unto him, and his record of integrity and uprightness 
has won for him the highest regard of all with whom he has come in contact. As 
a pioneer farmer and stockman of eastern Oregon and later a stock buyer for 
the O'Shea Brothers, the pioneer meat packers of Oregon, and later through his 
identification with the Union Meat Company and Swift & Company, he came to a 
place where his activities featured largely in connection with the live stock 
commission business of the state. He has a wide acquaintance among the cattle 
raisers of the northwest and in the course of years he built up a large 
commission business but is now living retired, enjoying the fruits of his 
former toil. His success is certainly well merited, being the reward of 
earnest, persistent and intelligently directed effort. His memory goes back to 
the period when with his father's family he crossed the plains with a train of 
fifty-six covered wagons, being six months on the road from Trenton, Missouri, 
to their destination. Since that time he has witnessed the entire growth and 
development of this state and today he is accounted one of its honored 
pioneers and valued citizens, esteemed by all who know him and most of all by 
those who have been his associates from that early period when he first came 
within the borders of this commonwealth.

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