Captain Robert Benham (November 17, 1750 – February 6, 1809), was a frontier pioneer, served in local government and was a member of the first elected legislature for the state of Ohio, in 1799 and 1800.
[1] After the death of his mother, he and his siblings, John, Richard, Amey, Peter and Catherine, were taken by his father and stepmother to be baptized at the Old Tennent Church in Manalapan Township, New Jersey May 31, 1759.
[2] His father was a lineal descendant of John Benham who settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1630 and later removed to New Haven, Connecticut where he was one of its founders.
His adventures were written about by many, including Henry Howe, President Teddy Roosevelt and the 1921 Year Book of the Boy Scouts of America.
Theodore Roosevelt wrote in The Winning of the West; "A still more remarkable event had occurred a couple summers previously (October 4, 1779).
Some keel boats, manned by a hundred men under (Colonel) Lieutenant(David) Rogers, and carrying arms and provisions procured from the Spaniards at New Orleans (from Governor Galvez and American Agent Oliver Pollock ), were set upon by an Indian war party under (Simon) Girty and Elliot while drawn upon a sand beach of the Ohio (later known as Manhattan Beach, Dayton, Kentucky.)