Biography of Benton Aldrich
From Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska
Page 394, et seq
BENTON ALDRICH
BENTON ALDRICH, farmer and horticulturist, and Postmaster of Clifton, is a native of Cheshire County, N. H., and was born May 3, 1831. He is the son of Alfred Aldrich, of the same county, and Mary Farrar Aldrich, of Hillsboro County. Benton received a common school education as he grew to manhood on the paternal farm. In 1850, he located in St. Croix Co., Wis., and three years later removed to Winona Co., Minn., where he lived until his settlement at Clifton, in 1866. Mr. A., seventeen years ago, had barely means to buy a forty, but he went bravely to work to demonstrate that skill, economy and close attention to business may enrich even a poor farmer in Nebraska, and further to prove that it is pre-eminently a fruit-growing State, to-day he has 100 acres, and the finest showing of fruit and forest trees in his locality. A quadruple row of cottonwood and soft maple was planted around the forty first bought in 1866, as a windbreak. In 1869, 1870 and 1871, he planted an orchard of 1,100 apple trees, now in full bearing, and in addition has 2,000 trees two years old and 640 trees one year old, as thriving as trees are anywhere else in the United States, and his groves of forest trees are an encouraging sight to the new-comer to Nebraska. The Ben Davis, Wine Sap and Rawl's Jannet are Mr. A.'s favorite apples. He is also a successful breeder of swine. At his house is kept the Clifton Library, comprising over 700 volumes; 320 of these are standard works on arts and sciences, by popular writers on those topics. A complete set of the Nebraska Supreme Court decisions arrayed prevent many a lawsuit in this pleasant and intelligent community of wide-awake farmers. The books circulate among about sixty families and are purchased and owned by the Clifton Library Association, comprising B. Aldrich, Librarian and Treasurer; W. F. Wright, J. B. Johnson, Charles Blodgett, Julius Gilbert, R. Brown, C. Gilbert, H. Douze, P. Crother, W. H. Hawley, P. Smith, J. H. Dundas, Karl Aldrich and J. M. Campbell. Mr. A. gave 1876 as the date of the organization, and is very much encouraged by the result accruing therefrom. He has a pleasant home, and has kept the Clifton Post Office since 1869. He married Dec. 5,1854, in St. Croix Co., Wis., Miss Martha J., daughter of John and Hannah Smalley Harshman, of Washington Co., Penn. They have five children--Karl, Nella and Mary, born in Winona Co., Minn., Lina and Alfred, born in Nebraska. Such is a brief and imperfect sketch of the life and work of Benton Aldrich, of Clifton.