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Hendrick Benner, Jr.

Like many other local men who participated in the Revolutionary War, Hendrick Benner was of Palatine descent, thus of a family that arrived in the colonies from what would become Germany in a wave of migration at the beginning of the 18th century.

Hendrick’s lineage is, as with the Palatines, typically confusing. His parents, Hendrick Benner and Catherine Pezer (Pitcher), baptized him in the Dutch Reformed Church in 1758. He married another Catherine Pitcher, and they baptized their own son Hendrick Benner in 1783. 

Hendrick Jr. and Catherine had at least eight children–Catherine who married Garret Cuck, Hendrick who married Annatje Moore and went by “Henry”, Maria who married John Knickerbocker, Elizabeth who married Cyrus Burnap, Anna who married Jacob W. Ten Broeck, Christina who married Samuel Nelson, Adam who died young, and Margaret. These families would remain local and intermarry for a few generations, and many locals are among their descendants. 

Before the Revolutionary War began, committees had formed in the colonies in response to “intolerable acts” and violence erupting in Massachusetts. In New York in 1775, the Provincial Congress drafted Articles of Association which asked the “Freeman, Freeholders, and Inhabitants” of New York that would sign them to agree to getting Britain to reconcile with America through boycotts of British goods, and align themselves with the patriot cause, as they were resolved “to never become Slaves” to British oppression. Many in our area did sign, but if someone was unsure or against the idea, their names were recorded as “those not signing.” Hendrick Benner, Jr., signed at Rhinebeck (which then encompassed Red Hook) along with other members of the Benner/Bender family. 

Though they were determined to “never become slaves,” we know that, as with most land-owning families in our area at the time, the Benners enslaved people themselves. In 1801, both a “Hendrick Benner” and presumably his son “Henry Benner” were recorded as owning one child born on or after July 4, 1799 because “an act for the gradual abolition of slavery” had been enacted in New York that ordered any children born to enslaved people from that day forward to be “free on certain conditions.” Once male children turned 28 and females turned 25, they would be legally free. Anyone born before then was reclassified as an indentured servant—literal baby steps toward full manumission that would come in 1827. A “Henry Benner” in 1800 and “Hendrick Benner” in 1810 are recorded in the Rhinebeck census (with family groups that fit the demographic of Hendrick Jr.’s) as owning enslaved people, nine in 1800 and 11 in 1810.

Our subject Hendrick Jr.’s father died in 1778 and was (as far as we can tell) not referred to as “junior.” Revolutionary Era records consistently record a “Jr.” suffix to our subject’s name, so we may assume that this is the one to whom they refer. During the Revolutionary War, Hendrick Benner Jr. was a private with the 6th Dutchess Militia under Col. Morris Graham and Col. Roswell Hopkins. After the War the government authorized land bounty rights as compensation for a soldier’s service. Hendrick, Jr., was awarded these rights for his service, but it is unknown if he received land or profit from the sale of land for them. He died of dropsy in 1817 and left his farm to his son Henry and money to his wife and daughters.

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