Taylor County, West Virginia Biography of Lee BENNETT ************************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: Material may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material, AND permission is obtained from the contributor of the file. These pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor. Submitted by Valerie Crook, , March 1999 ************************************************************************** The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 97-98 LEE BENNETT, a former sheriff of Taylor County, is a plasterer, contractor and business man of Grafton, where he has spent practically all his years since early childhood. A more popular and substantial citizen of the county it would be difficult to find. The family was established in Taylor County by his grandfather, Reuben Bennett, a native of Virginia and a farmer by occupation. He died about 1878, aged eighty- one, surviving his wife about a year. Her maiden name was Martha Carder. Reuben Bennett was strong in his Southern sympathies, but two of his sons wore the blue and two the grey during the Civil war. His children were: Elias; Calvin and Prank the Union soldiers, who spent their last years in the West; William, who also died in the West; Thomas, who died near Industrial, West Virginia; John, a resident of Taylor County; Tabby, who married Noah Carter and died in Barbour County; Ann, who be- came the wife of Frank Goodwyn and died in Taylor Coun- ty; Jane, who married Everett Scott, and lived and died in the West; and Elizabeth, who died unmarried. Elias Bennett was born in Taylor County and as a young man left his family to enlist in the Confederate Army, serving from the beginning to the end of the struggle. After the war he settled on a small farm at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and died there in February, 1866, aged forty years. While in the South he married Margaret J. Six, daughter of a Southern planter. Lee Bennett, who was born at Vicksburg, February 19, 1865, was the youngest of three children and the only one to grow up. After the death of his father his mother came to West Virginia and established her home with Reuben Bennett in Taylor County. She lived at Pruntytown many years, and finally went to live with her son in Grafton, where she died, September 30, 1921, when almost eighty-one. She was an active member of the Baptist Church, was well educated and had taught in the South before the war and did some teaching in Taylor County. On coming up from the South she brought, among other effects, the pocketbook and Tes- tament that had been carried by her husband through the war, and these are carefully preserved by her son, Lee. Lee Bennett had a farm training and attended the rural schools of the Booths Creek District. At the age of eigh- teen, in the intervals of farm work, he began learning the trade of plasterer, and for many years he wielded the trowel, hawk, darby and brush as the principal implements of his life work. After his four years' service as sheriff he again resumed the tools of his trade, and is still a contractor su- pervising the work of several mechanics, though most of his time is devoted to his paint, oil and varnish store on Main Street in Grafton. When he was elected sheriff in 1912 Mr. Bennett broke a custom in local politics that had kept a republican in the office of sheriff for twenty-eight years. He made the race against big odds, and gave a thoroughly efficient adminis- tration. He succeeded Sheriff Hefner, and was in turn succeeded by Melvin Newlon. Mr. Bennett cast his first presidential vote for Cleveland in 1888 and has always done his duty at the polls and has since helped elect two demo- cratic presidents. He is a member of the Grafton Chamber of Commerce, is a past noble grand of Taylor Lodge No. 23, I. O. O. F., at Pruntytown, and has been a delegate to the Grand Lodge at Huntington, and is also a member of the Woodmen of the World. In Taylor County, January 21, 1891, Mr. Bennett mar- ried Miss Annie M. Bunner. Her mother was a Miss War- der. She was born at Martins Ferry, Ohio, April 15, 1870, and was reared in Taylor County, where her father died when she was a child. The other children of her parents were Charles, of Pruntytown; Ocie; and Margaret, wife of William Hall, of Seattle, Washington. Mr. and Mrs. Ben- nett have three children. Leo E., connected with the Sen- tinel Publishing Company of Grafton, married Ileen Bat- son, and has a daughter, Georgianna. Ruby married C. L. Kimmel, of Morgantown, and has a daughter, Catherine Virginia. Hazel is the wife of J. D. Sisler, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and they have a daughter, Jeanne Susan.