Making Good Men, Better Men Since Time Immemorial
Making Good Men, Better Men Since Time Immemorial

1821-1899

Nimrod Earle Benson, PGM 1825-1828

NIMROD EARLE BENSON, one of the earliest white settlers of Montgomery, was born at Greenville, South Carolina, May 10, 1794. His mother’s name was Earle and he was from a very respected family in South Carolina. He was educated at Columbia College and was enrolled as an attorney in S.C. He soon acquired a high rank in his profession and was present around the period of the formation of Territorial Government in Montgomery, Alabama. NIMROD was the second lawyer that located in Montgomery and in 1821 and 1823, he was intendant of the town. In 1825, he represented the county of Montgomery in the legislature, and was re-elected in 1826. Nimrod was elected judge of the county court in 1827, and held the office a short time. In 1846, he was mayor of Montgomery. He was appointed Receiver of Public Moneys in the land office of Montgomery when the last Creek cession was thrown on the market. Nimrod had just returned from Mobile where he had gone to make his periodic deposits in September 1854, when he sickened and died suddenly from yellow fever. Yellow fever was prevalent in both Mobile and Montgomery in 1854.

“While his body was in the parlor of his home, awaiting the time of interment, an Irishman, a stranger to all the family, walked in, and after a tearful gaze of the face, remarked, ” A good man, and a friend of the poor, is gone,” and retired. This was the tribute of a poor and “unknown stranger to the virtues of JUDGE BENSON, more eloquent and truthful than is found on monuments, or in eulogistic biographies.” He was a prominent Mason, and foremost on many good works, and his character for integrity is irreproachable.

“He was a Democrat of the old Jackson school, but was so prudent and respectful where differences of opinion existed, that his personal and fraternal relations were strong and harmonious. He was the oldest Mason in Alabama at the time of his death, and had filled the office of Grand Master of the Grand Lodge in the infancy of the Order in the State, besides occupying honorable positions in the Grand Chapter.”

“In estimating JUDGE BENSON, it would be enough to say that he was the legal patron of GOV. FITZPATRICK, JUDGE HENRY GOLDTHWAITE, GOV. GEORGE W. TOWNS, of Georgia, and SENATOR GEORGE GOLDTHWAITE, all of whom, if I have been correctly informed, studied law under his direction, and took from him their first lessons in legal knowledge. For many years, indeed from the time I first knew him, he had abandoned the bar and had engaged in other pursuits more suited to his taste as he advanced in age. GOV. FITZPATRICK very properly nominated him as one of the Directors to take charge of the assets on the liquidation of the Branch Bank at Montgomery; and in all the public trusts which he held, I never heard a whisper of distrust of his ability and integrity.

JUDGE BENSON was not, nor did he try to be, a showy man. His attainments were solid, and his character was based upon the principle of right and justice in his transactions with his fellow-men, and in the discharge of public trusts; and in the practical exhibition of these, he was equal to any gentleman I have known in the State. Alabama has had few such citizens, in all the attributes of an upright man, and a true Mason as NIMROD E. BENSON. He represented a class of men who have pretty much passed away leaving the savor of a good name and example for the men of this fraternity.

William B. Patton, PGM 1823-1825

WILLIAM B. PATTON was an early settler of Mobile County, Alabama. He was on a list of taxable property for Mobile County in 1817 and his name was on a petition of residents living on the Mobile River to Congress. The petition was made to stop the extension of Mississippi Territory into the Alabama Territory because it would “retard the admission of the Alabama territory into the union as an independent state and will considerable augment the burdens of government, when it is admitted.

Current research on William B. Patton:
He was Attorney at Law in Claiborne County, Alabama—Lived at Claiborne, 1825, listed as one to be invited to LAFAYETTE Celebration April 1825.—JAMES DELLET Papers, Alabama Military Archives.
(Revolutionary War Soldiers in Alabama)

Major General Thomas Wadsworth Farrar 1821-1823

MAJOR GENERAL THOMAS WADSWORTH FARRAR resided in Elyton, Jefferson County, Alabama in 1821. He was born in South Carolina in 1784 to LT. COL. THOMAS and MARGARET (PRINCE) FARRAR. His father, LT. COL. THOMAS FARRAR was born Oct. 1, 1754 and married MARGARET PRINCE in South Carolina Oct. 7, 1777. MARGARET PRINCE was born March 4, 1756. THOMAS WADSWORTH’S father died on August 24,1833, and his mother on Nov. 8, 1830. Both died in Claiborne County, Mississippi.

MAJOR GENERAL THOMAS FARRAR served as in the War of 1812 and was one of the earliest settlers of Jefferson County. He was a lawyer and one of the first to belong to the Jefferson County Bar. He was described as “about forty years old, corpulent, big-hearted, genial, and an epicure. No dinner party was complete without him. His appetite always relieved any deficiency of the caterer. He had little energy, but, withal, was a good lawyer.”

As usual with new counties Jefferson County was sparsely settled, and the administration of justice was begun, and for several years prosecuted, in the crudest and most primitive manner. There was no courthouse and the first court was held in a log hut about one mile east of Birmingham. This seat of justice was never dignified with a name, and after three or four terms of the court were held there, Carrollsville (four miles south of where Birmingham now stands) was selected as the place to hold the courts. Here, too, the court accommodations never exceeded the limits of a log cabin, in which two terms of the court were held, and then the county seat was removed to Elyton, about two miles south of the present flourishing city of Birmingham.

MAJOR GENERAL THOMAS FARRAR served as a member of the Legislature, representing Jefferson County in 1822. THOMAS WADSWORTH FARRAR married SERAPHINE FELICITE BAGNERIS June 23, 1814 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Among the guests at his wedding was the Territorial Governor of Louisiana and Mississippi, WILLIAM COLES CLAIBORNE, FARRAR’S death occurred in November 1832 in New Orleans, and he is believed to be buried in that city.” THOMAS and SERAPHINE had the following known children: (1) DUVALMONT FARRAR b. Oct 2, 1823 Elyton, Jefferson Co., AL (2)SERAPHINE MELANIE FARRAR b. Dec 29, 1829 Elyton, Jefferson Co., AL (3) CATHRINE FARRAR b. 1831 Louisiana (4) HENRY THOMAS FARRAR b. Jan 6, 1832 New Orleans, Louisiana. SERAPHINE died after 1850 Louisiana census.

*note:: 1838 Grand Lodge Proceedings list the death of the following:

Perry Lodge, No. 34, Marion – G. .T. W. Farrar