BENJAMIN LEVI LENAMON
Submitted by Frank Butcher, updated
May 28, 2007
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Benjamin Levi Lenamon was born in Cherokee County, Alabama in 1863. After the
death of his father, Levi, Ben moved with his mother to Dallas County, Alabama.
From there the family moved on to Sumter County for a few years until they
finally departed for Texas in 1881. Ben, his mother Sarah, his stepfather,
Joshua Carrell, and three or more sisters arrived by train at Thornton, Texas.
Ben had one dime in his pocket upon their arrival. Not too long after Ben and his mom arrived in Texas, Ben went to the local dry goods store to purchase a sack to use in picking cotton so that he could make some sorely needed cash for the family. He had only 35 cents, and the price was 50 cents. The merchant refused to extent the 15 cents credit Ben needed. In his anger, Ben told the man, "I gannies" (a phrase he used to express anger and/or determination), "I'll see the day I'll buy and sell you." Later, Ben bought the store and then closed it down to fulfill his pledge. Ben married Nancy Permelia Herod, the daughter of Thomas Jefferson Herod of Attala County, Mississippi. The Herod family had moved to Texas about 1851. Nancy's grandfather, James Herod, was called Dr. Herod. He was a lay Methodist minister and practical physician who used his own medicine to treat the early pioneers. Ben was a pioneer builder and even though he could neither read nor write, it was said that he could figure one of his construction jobs down to the point that any excess materials could be carried off in a wheelbarrow. It has also been said that Ben could calculate the proceeds from the sale of boxcar loads of cattle in his head faster than others could with pencil and paper. His son Bart took great pride in once having corrected his dad's calculations. Bart told Ben "Pa, if I can show you where they are cheating you, will you buy me the gun I’ve been wanting". Ben said he would.... and he did. One of Ben's construction jobs was the building of the opera house in Groesbeck, Texas. Tradition has Ben going by train to Dallas with gold in a money belt to pay for furnishings for the opera house. His four sons helped with this construction. The building was well built from bricks made at the local brick plant and is currently (2002) still in use as the home of the Groesbeck Journal newspaper. His grandchildren remember Ben as truly a unique person. He had imagination and was an innovator, entrepreneur, and developer who had no peer in the Groesbeck area. Ben got his start by buying land in the Box Church / Rocky Point area, with much of the money coming from the backbreaking work of cutting cord wood and splitting rails for fences. He worked his farm by day and cut wood at night, using a gasoline powered saw. Eventually, Ben became a very large landowner and made money by sharecropping the land, financing his tenant’s crops, and serving as a middleman in the selling of those crops. Ben maintained a commissary on his home place where the tenants on his many farms and other locals could buy supplies without traveling a great distance to the nearest store. He also built homes on each farm. Ben maintained a small blacksmith shop to make repairs. Once in the barnstorming era of flying, an airplane was forced to land in one of Ben's pastures due to mechanical trouble. Ben manufactured the part needed in his shop, and sent the plane on its way. Ben was always on the cutting edge when it came to applying new technology to his holdings. He had the first telephone in the area, a private system that connected family members. Ben installed carbide lights at his house and also had an old Saxon car. He first used a well pump, and then the first windmill in the area to provide cold running water to the barn and kitchen. In 1921, possibly prompted by oily seepages into tanks on his farm, Ben drilled the first well looking for oil in the area, drilling down to 1400 feet and finding nothing. Although his well came up dry, enormous natural gas reserves were found on his property in later years by drillers with the capability of going deeper. A grandson of the founder of the Dick Scott Ford Dealership in Mexia told how his grandfather sold the first Model T truck in the area to Ben. Ford shipped a single truck to its Mexia dealer in order to introduce the new product to the region. Mr. Scott thought about people who would have enough money to purchase the truck and decided to drive it to Ben Lenamon's place. After listening to Scott's sales pitch, Ben agreed to buy the truck with the condition that he first had to teach Ben's daughter, Onie, how to drive it. Ben's position was that he would not drive the vehicle, and that his daughter would chauffeur him wherever he needed to go. Onie was delighted with this prospect, since it was be a way for her to avoid hard work in the fields. After Onie received her driving instruction, Ben paid Scott in cash, but was less accommodating when it came to providing him with transportation back to Mexia. Ben told Scott that Onie would drive him only as far as Groesbeck, and that he would have to walk the remaining 13 miles. Ben and Nancy gave each of their ten children one hundred acres of land and a house when they married, with the provision that they homestead the property. On her death bed Nancy persuaded Ben to give each child an additional 100 acres. This was not difficult for a man who owned thousands of acres, some of it bought for fifty cents to two dollars an acre. What is admirable is that he taught his children the value of hard work. He felt that hard work never hurt anyone. Benjamin Levi was a devout member of the Church of Christ. For 25 years, he was in charge of carrying the sacraments associated with church rituals such as the Lord's Supper. Ben reportedly drank only once. On a cold winter night, in an attempt to keep warm on his ride home, he drank enough whiskey to get tipsy and fell off his horse. His commentary about the situation was that anything that made a man look so foolish couldn't be good, and he never drank again. The spelling of Ben’s last name was different from that of his father, Levi Lenderman, and his brother, Henry Lafayette (Fate) Lenamond. Probably the difference in spelling was caused by Ben’s inability to read or write, but some feel that it was intentionally done in order to distance himself and his family from Fate, who Ben considered to be lazy and lacking in ambition. Ben’s father, Levi Lenamon, was shot and killed by “bushwhackers” just three years after the Civil War. This event left his family destitute and 5 year-old Ben was reduced to gleaning fields for food to help the family through the crisis. This plunge into poverty was a character molding experience that helps to explain Ben’s fierce determination to be financially successful, as well as his generosity to people in dire straits. On the streets of Groesbeck, Ben encountered the wife of a friend who was quite ill. Ben inquired about the health of the lady’s husband, and was told that he was doing poorly and probably dying. Ben reached into his pocket, pulled out $1,000, offered it to the lady and asked, “Will this help?”. One thousand dollars in 1920 would be equivalent to about $20,000 in 1997 dollars, so the amount of the offer is probably exaggerated, but the story still makes a significant statement about Ben’s generosity and his empathy for people going through tough times. This story was told to Ben’s grandson, Joe Lenamon, by a descendant of the lady who was the beneficiary of Ben’s offer. Nancy died at her home near Rocky Point after a long illness on June 28, 1923. Ben then married Clara V. Ethridge on October 20, 1924. According to family hearsay, Clara set her sights on Ben and his assets shortly after Nancy’s death. This marriage certainly introduced considerable turmoil into the family. Clifton Lenamon and several of the older children had large families of their own when their mother died. Probably fearing that Clara would maneuver them out of their rightful inheritance, they asked Ben to divide the estate of their mother in order that each child might receive a child’s share. Since Nancy Permelia died in testate, half of her estate would go to her spouse, Ben, and the other half to the ten children. Each child was thus entitled to 1/20 of the community property of Ben and Nancy. Ben refused to divide the estate, resulting in case number 6441-A, filed in district court by Clifton C. Lenamon et. al. against B.L. Lenamon, dated January 5, 1926. The children received their 1/20 share following an appeal of the case that allowed the land that each child had previously received to count in their share. Each child received only a small amount of acreage after payment of the large attorney fees. Ben made a new will on August 29, 1927 following the suit by his children. He named Clara Lenamon to be the beneficiary of his estate with any residue following the death of Clara to go to only three of his children--Lillie Engram, Inez Gorman, and Bart Lenamon. After Ben died on September 30, 1930, the children also contested the second will. Suspicion is strong in the family that Clara with assistance from corrupt local officials stole the small fortune in gold that Ben had accumulated in his lifetime. Family members related that the case made a sudden and unexpected change in Clara’s favor, and rumors still remain that the shift in the family’s legal fortunes coincided with an increase in the wealth of the judge and lawyers involved in the case. Lillie, Inez, and Bart received a small negotiated settlement for their expected inheritance following the death of Clara, and the other 7 children received nothing. According to some versions of the story, Clara plotted with a local lawyer from the very start to marry Ben and steal his money and land. Lending some credence to this story is the fact that the lawyer ended up owning a significant amount of Lenamon land after Ben’s death. Clearly, by whatever version of the story one accepts, Clara did take advantage of a lonely, vulnerable man. She manipulated him and deprived his children of their rightful inheritance, enriching her own family at the Lenamon’s expense. Ultimately and sadly, Ben’s children received very little of his large estate. The children who did not sell the land they were given, or kept the mineral rights to that land, eventually profited handsomely when enormous gas deposits were found beneath Ben’s land. If all of Ben’s thousands of acres had been kept in the family, the gas royalties would have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars to his descendants. Ben was buried in the Lenamon Family Cemetery with Nancy. Ben and Nancy were both members of the Church of Christ. A LENAMON LEGEND A man who at Christmas could give each of his ten children a twenty dollar gold piece, Benjamin Levi Lenamon was a man of great wealth, and was reputed to have hidden the bulk of his money. Sometime after the death of Nancy Permelia, Ben’s daughter-in-law, Carrie, consulted a fortuneteller who told her that her father-in-law had buried his money. The psychic further told Carrie that papers in the buried vessel were worth much more than the money itself. Time would show that only Clara knew the location of Ben’s treasure. Ben died just six years after his marriage to Clara. The Lenamon children were convinced that in some way Clara was responsible for his death, and speculated that she poisoned him gradually by adding increasing amounts of some toxic substance to his food. Ben had established a family cemetery on his property, and was buried next to his first wife. The day after his burial, his daughter Lillie and her husband, who lived close to the cemetery, were leaving to visit the grave when they saw Clara drive by with her son and daughter. Lillie postponed her visit to the cemetery for a short while to give Clara privacy, and then started walking down the road toward the cemetery. As Lillie and her husband approached, they were again passed by Clara and her children as they drove away. Arriving at the grave, Lillie was shocked to see that Nancy Permelia’s grave had been disturbed, with the ground dug away to reveal a layer of brick that covered Nancy’s casket. Family speculation is that Ben buried his money there, and Clara dug up the money for her family, stealing it from Ben’s children. The valuable papers buried with Ben’s money according to the psychic were assumed by the family to have been gold certificates. After Ben’s death, many members of the family witnessed strange lights in the Lenamon family cemetery. The lights were described as “balls of fire” that would rise into the air, and go in different directions before fading away. Most of those who saw the lights claimed that when they tried to get close, the light would go out. However Carrie, who lived next to the cemetery, had a different experience. She and her son were gathering stove wood shortly after dark, and Carrie made the comment that she wished that they could see that light. No sooner did she make her wish than there it was, coming closer and closer. Carrie and her son became frightened, dropped the wood, and ran into the house. One theory to explain the lights at the Lenamon Cemetery is that it is the ghost of Benjamin Levi Lenamon, haunting the area in response to the wrong that was done to him and his family by Clara. |
Frank Butcher
2007