Benjamin School District 25

Benjamin School District 25 - Brief History of Pioneering Benjamin Family

Robert Y. Benjamin was born July 27 1808, in the Little Scioto River Valley near Columbus, Ohio. His parents were Daniel (Oct. 18, 1766 to Jan. 8, 1863) and Martha (Apr. 2, 1772 to Jan. 19, 1863) Benjamin. He married Nancy Groves of Kentucky (Mar. 1808 to Mar. 1860) some time in the mid-1820s, and they lived in Ohio when she gave birth to their first son, William Benjamin in 1828.

Soon after William was born, Robert and Nancy moved to Terre Haute, Indiana, and their family grew with the births of Allen Benjamin in 1830, and the twins, Daniel and Nathan Benjamin on Oct. 9, 1832.

On March 12, 1834, the family moved once again and settled in DuPage County, Illinois, on a farm in Wayne Township. While in Illinois, the family added four more children: George born in 1834, Elisabeth born in 1836, Walter born in 1844, and Elva born in 1848.

In the early 1840s, Robert Y. Benjamin was named by President James K. Polk as the Postmaster for West DuPage. He purchased additional land in Wayne County in 1842 and 1843.

In 1844, Robert donated land for the Benjamin School District, and a log cabin structure was built as the first school. By 1852, a new clapboard structure was built to replace the log cabin.

According to the U.S. Census for 1860, Robert remained a farmer in Wayne Township along with his sons, Daniel and Nathan. The oldest, William, was a school teacher (maybe he taught in the Benjamin School District?). Son Allen was a carpenter; George and Walter were laborers; and Elisabeth performed domestic help.

Soon after, William moved to Blue Mound, Ill.; and Daniel moved away to Gallands Grove, Iowa. Nathan married Anna Louise Kline on Dec. 24, 1862, and worked his own farm in Wayne Township.

By the time of the 1870 U.S. Census, Robert’s wife, Nancy, had died. The census shows that Robert re-married (Celestine, Feb. 1828 to Apr. 1891), and had another son, Frank (born in 1859). Daughter Elva still lived at home with her father.

Robert Y. Benjamin died on June 1, 1892. He and both his wives are buried in the Oakwood Cemetery in West Chicago, IL. (Oakwood Cemetery is the oldest existing cemetery in town, established by the Oakwood Cemetery Association in 1858 on land donated by Dr. & Mrs. Joseph McConnell. It is now operated by the City of West Chicago. The West Chicago City Museum maintains indexed files on the tombstones and on local obituaries as an aid to genealogists.) Robert Benjamin’s son, Nathan, continued to live in the school district area until he died in 1922.

In 1901, the school district’s 50-year-old clapboard school was replaced by a new one-room school house, which in turn was replaced by several re-built schools where the current Benjamin Middle School sits today. Benjamin School District 25 will celebrate its 165th anniversary in 2009.

The information in this article was researched by Tony Molinaro, a former Benjamin District 25 School Board president. Sources include school records, old newspaper articles, U.S. Census Records, and U.S. Land Records.

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