In later years he operated a hotel in the Oregon Territory before dying in the American Indian Wars as a captain of a cavalry unit.

Marshall claimed that at the time that he discovered gold in the mill's tail-race, Bennett was half a mile away at the house.

[4] This version of events is disputed by Stephen Staats, a lifelong acquaintance who was with him at the time, and later wrote a letter to the Oregon Statesman, stating: "In 1847 we furnished Bennett with an outfit and he traveled with us to California.

He assisted Marshall in building a mill on the American fork of the Sacramento, and he was the first one that beheld the glittering dust when water was turned into the race for the purpose of clearing it out.

Bennett was the captain of the sternwheeler Wallemet in April 1854, when the boiler of the steamer Gazelle exploded while both boats were lying at Canemah, Oregon.

[7] His memorial is a white marble obelisk, 6 feet in height with a square pointed cap, a Masonic carving of the All-seeing eye gazing upon an open book.