Lemuel BENTON, Congress, SC (1754-1818)
BENTON, Lemuel, (great-grandfather of George William Dargan), a Representative from South Carolina; born in Granville County, N.C., in 1754; as a young man moved to that section of Cheraw District which is now Darlington County, S.C.; engaged as a planter and subsequently became an extensive landowner; elected major of the Cheraw Regiment in 1777 and served throughout the Revolutionary War, being promoted to the rank of colonel in 1781; resigned his commission in 1794; member of the State house of representatives 1782-1788; county court justice of Darlington County in 1785 and 1791; escheator of Cheraw District (composed of what is now Chesterfield, Darlington, and Marlboro Counties) in 1787; delegate to the State convention at Charleston that ratified the Federal Constitution in 1788; sheriff of Cheraw District in 1789 and 1791; delegate to the State constitutional convention at Columbia in 1790; elected as an Anti-Administration candidate to the Third Congress and reelected as a Republican to the Fourth and Fifth Congresses (March 4, 1793-March 3, 1799); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1798 to the Sixth Congress; resumed agricultural pursuits; died in Darlington, Darlington County, S.C., May 18, 1818; interment on his estate, âStony Hill,â near Darlington, S.C.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
