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Surnames: Bennett and Chism
Classification: Biography
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/Di.2ADE/2137
Message Board Post:
The History Of Coles County, Illinois, Wm. Le Baron, Jr. & Company, Chicago,
Illinois, 1879, page 610
ABRAHAM BENNETT, minister of United Brethren Church, Westfield; was born in Meade Co.
Ky, Nov. 15, 1823; after remaining at home until the age of 18, he started out in life for
himself, flat-boating on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers for some five or six years; in
the year 1852, he commenced traveling in the ministry of the United Brethern Church,
having from his youth been connected with that Church; in the same year, leaving his
family in Kentucky, he traveled circuit for some six years in Indiana, when having
returned to Kentucky, was engaged in missionary work through that State for three
successive years; having sold his farm, he moved his family to Harrison Co., Ind., in what
is widely known as the "Rippidan Valley," and continued traveling circuit up to
the fall of 1864, when he moved to Hutton Tp., Coles Co., and settled upon his present
farm when it was a dense wood; at first, before the establishment of a circuit in Hutton
Tp., Mr. Bennett engaged in missionar!
y work until it became a circuit, when he filled the position of a local minister, and
was greatly instrumental in building the "West Liberty Chapel" of the U. B,
Church, and also "Weaver Chapel" on the edge of "Park Prairie." He
married Miss Martha Jane Chism (daughter of John Chism of Meade Co., Ky.) on July 4, 1850;
she was born Jan. 5, 1831; they had eight children, four boys, three living - John J.,
James Hand, David S.; - one died - George W.; and four girls, two living - Laura A. and
Martha J., and two died - Mary E. and Purva C."
Note: "West Liberty Chapel" was familarly called just "Liberty Chapel"
and the buidling was torn-down in 2005. "Park Prairie" should be "Parker
Prairie."