DENTON, BENJAMIN (1721-1789). Private, Colonel Josiah Smith’s 1st Regiment of Suffolk County Minutemen, Captain John Wickes’s 5th Company; associator, Huntington, New York. Benjamin’s family tree posted on Ancestry.com reports that he was born in 1721 in Jamica, Queens to Richard (1687-1782) and Temperance Titus Steevens Denton (1781-1742). His family tree indicates that Benjamin’s siblings were Richard (1714-1780); John (1715-1782); and Temperance (1718-1778). This information is also recorded on the Geneanet and Find A Grave websites.
Benjamin married Rebecca Ketcham (1722-1783) at the Old First Church on March 26, 1747. The couple’s children were Hannah (1746-1779); Alexander (1748-1814); Rebecca (1751-1754); Benjamin Jr. (1753-1834); Joseph (1857-1814); and Mary (1759-1812). This information is also included in U.S. Family History Books (page 328, 1897). Their son, Benjamin Jr., was a contractor and builder who was responsible for the construction of John Jacob Astor’s home on 90th Street in Manhattan, an edifice built by hand.
Denton was a signatory to Huntington’s Articles of Association. On May 8, 1775, 403 men, most of them Huntington residents (a few were from Islip), “shocked by the bloody Scene” that had occurred just weeks before at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, where patriot Minutemen and British regulars had engaged in a bloody armed struggle, put their signatures on Huntington’s Articles of Association. Only 37 Huntington residents, either Loyalists or those wanting to stay out of the fray, refused to sign. The Articles noted that the signers affirmed their “Love to our Country,” agreed “to whatever Measures may be recommended by the Continental Congress; or resolved upon by our Provincial Convention, for the Purpose of preserving our Constitution, and opposition to the Execution of the several arbitrary, and oppressive Acts of the British Parliament,” and prayed for “a Reconciliation between Great-Britain and America.” The actions of these associators were seen by both patriots and the British as a step towards rebellion. The fact that these men signed these Articles, placing themselves in danger of British retaliation, including imprisonment, seizure of their property, and exile from Long Island, is proof of their patriotic service.
Fold3.com reports that he served in the militia during the American Revolution. As per A History of Long Island: from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, the appendix entry notes that Benjamin Denton was an enlisted man in Colonel Joseph Smith’s Suffolk County Militia. As per Frederic G. Mather in his scholarly text, The Refugees of 1776 from Long Island to Connecticut (1913), Denton is listed among the men in Captain John Wickes’s 5th Company who returned from service from July 29 through August 31, 1776; the return was after the Patriots loss in the Battle of Long Island (Battle of Brooklyn) on August 27, 1776. A notation to the list indicates (original spelling), “Sir, this is a List of the men that Belong to my Company & all Except one are Equipt and have got some Ammunition as to make a Compleat Return at Present. I cannot for there is a Considerable Number that have not turn’d out…” He might also be the Benjamin Denton listed in The Militia (Land Bounty Rights)-Dutchess County, Sixth Regiment in New York in the Revolution as Colony and State. New York Military in the Revolution confirms his service in the 1st Regiment of Minutemen. Huntington Town Records, in its “Assessment of Property in Huntington About the Close of the War, 1782,” reports that Benjamin’s property was valued at £35, in the lower portion of his contemporaries; the records list him as an inhabitant of Huntington in 1783,
The 1790 census shows that he lived in South Hempstead, Queens, New York. Two residents comprised Benjamin’s household, he and a free white female.
Benjamin died on May 12, 1789, and was interred at the Old Burying Ground. As per Cemetery Inscriptions from Huntington, Long Island, compiled by Josephine C. Frost in 1911, Benjamin’s gravestone reads, “In memory of Mr. Benjamin Denton who died May 12, 1789. In the 68th year of his age.” His wife Rebecca’s tombstone is inscribed, “Rebecca, wife of Benjamin Denton, died May 23, 1783. Age 61 years.” Family information about Benjamin and his relatives is also listed in Halstead/Halsted Family History (family relationship not indicated), an online blog.
