FtV - The Haunted Homestead of Daniel Benton
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Welcome, legendary listeners. Thanks for tuning in to From the Vault, a second look at some of our classic episodes. Look for a new episode every week. Now, can you go back and listen on your own at OurNewEnglandLegends.com? You bet. But you won't get the added bonus of an After the Legends segment featuring new commentary about that episode from your old pals Jeff and Ray. So let's open up the New England Legends Vault and revisit another legendary episode.

Welcome to the vault, kids. We are glad you're here with us in the vault. It's a Valentine week. And this is a heartwarming story. The Haunted Homestead of Daniel Benton. First aired May 20th, 2021. Enjoy.

New England is full of so many great old historic homes. If these walls could talk, huh? You know what? Sometimes they can and do, which is why we're in Tolland, Connecticut today. We're looking for this town's most historic building. Now keep your eyes open for a red house coming up on the left. All right. Metcalfe Road is quintessential small-town New England. It's lined with colonial stone walls and trees. The houses are spaced pretty far apart and set back from the road. What?

Oh, I see it. That old house right there. Yeah, that's it. That's the place we're looking for. Welcome to the Daniel Benton Homestead, one of Connecticut's most heartbreaking haunts. Hey there, I'm Jeff Belanger. And I'm Ray Ogier. Welcome to episode 196 of the New England Legends podcast. If you give us about 10 minutes, we'll give you something strange to talk about today. Tolland, Connecticut is the next stop on our mission to chronicle every legend in New England, one story at a time.

Is the Daniel Benton Homestead your favorite New England haunt? If so, maybe you should head over to our website and nominate it for a Boney Award. That's right. It's our first annual Best of New England Awards.

We're now taking nominations for your favorite haunt, ice cream place, beer, pizza, cemetery, and so much more. You'll find a link to the submission form right on our homepage. Now, before we explore this haunted homestead, we need to take just a minute to tell you about our sponsor, Nuwadi Herbals. Yes, indeed. You already know that Nuwadi Herbals makes a wide range of delicious and natural loose teas that are perfect for

Whether you need a boost to your immune system, wind down after a long day, get some energy to start your day, or just treat yourself to a few minutes of peace that only a cup of tea can bring. But did you know that Nuwadi Herbals also mix a line of balms, essential oils, bath salts, and products made for the outside of your body? With the summer months coming, you'll want to keep plenty of their natural no-skeeto insect repellent on hand today.

to keep those pests away this summer. This isn't some giant corporation either. These are people we know making these products and shipping them directly to you.

Please support the people who are supporting us. These are herbal remedies from Mother Earth. Check out the Nuwadi Herbals website to see all their great products. And you legendary listeners, you get 20% off your order when you use the promo code LEGENDS20 at checkout. Visit nuwadiherbals.com. That's N-U-W-A-T-I herbals with an S dot com. Okay, Jeff, the Daniel Benton Homestead looks amazing.

Old. Yeah. The wooden siding painted red, the blue door, the central chimney. You can tell this house has been here for a while. Ray, when this house was built, we were still England. It was built in 1720. This place is now more than three centuries old. So no doubt this house has seen a few things. It's seen a revolution, a country born, a country at war with itself. It's seen the advent of electrification.

Electricity, radio, world wars, television, powered flights, space travel, and now, of course, capping all that off, a podcast episode of New England Legends. But it's a tragic love story that haunts this old house, a tale of two lovers who could never be together in life. Let's head back to 1776 and meet Daniel Benton and his family. ♪

It's the spring of 1776 and Daniel Benton is now an old man. He's weathered but hardened. The man and his family are the very definition of America.

Benton's sons fought in the French and Indian War. Five of his grandsons are now fighting in the Revolutionary War against England. The Bentons are wealthy. They own about 400 acres of land and are pretty influential here in Tolland, Connecticut, which of course makes the Benton men pretty highly eligible bachelors. Just before the war began, Daniel Benton's oldest grandson, 28-year-old Elisha Benton, became smitten with a 16-year-old local girl named Jemima Barrows.

The problem...

The problem is, Jemima's father is a furniture maker. A working man who doesn't own land. And these days, marriage is all about the union of families and wealth. The Bentons forbid the match. Elisha and Jemima's love simply cannot be. But that doesn't stop Elisha and Jemima. In fact, sometimes when parents forbid something... It makes the kids want to do that thing even more. Exactly. So the two meet in secret. In fact, the only thing that can separate them is war.

Elijah is fighting in the Continental Army. His whole family believes in the cause, so he sees this as his duty to fight for independence. It's August when Elijah finds himself near Brooklyn, New York, and the western end of Long Island. General George Washington had defeated the British in the siege of Boston back in March. So now General Washington has his sights set on New York City and its highly strategic ports. Now the British, they also know how important the New York ports are.

They know having a stronghold here for the Royal Navy would go a long way in the British cause to stop the uprising. So General Washington and his troops set up a defense and wait. It's quiet. Too quiet. It turns out the Continental Army is outmatched and outsmarted. On August 21st, the British land on the shores across from Staten Island, more than 12 miles away from the mouth of the East River, where Washington expected an attack.

The British lie in wait for five days before moving behind Washington's men and flanking them. The Americans panic and race back to Brooklyn to dig in, but not before losing 20% of their forces to casualty or capture. Among those captured is Elijah Benton of Tolland, Connecticut.

General Washington knows this position is a lost cause, so he evacuates the remainder of his men to Manhattan and then moves them out of New York to fight another day. It's a resounding British victory. Elijah is first imprisoned inside some old sugar houses in New York, but when space runs out, prisoners are moved to prison ships floating in the harbor.

The prison ships are awful. They're unsanitary, they're cramped, and the men, keep in mind, men who the British see as traitors, are stuffed into these boats like livestock.

As the weeks turn to months, the conditions on the prison ships are only getting worse. Pretty soon, someone on board has smallpox. Highly contagious and deadly, it's a matter of days before everyone on the ship has smallpox, including Elisha Benton. There's no cure. And now that the prisoners are sick with the deadly virus, their British captors don't dare get too close.

It's now January 3rd of 1777 when Elijah Benton's prison ship sets sail out of New York Harbor. Their destination is only about 100 miles away at the port of New London, Connecticut. It's here that the British organize a prisoner exchange with the Continental Army. New London, Connecticut is of course located at the mouth of the Thames River, which of course is spelled exactly the same as that river in London, England, which of course it's named after.

But in Connecticut, it's pronounced Thames, which makes the British soldiers bristle because any real subject of the crown would pronounce the river the proper British way and call it the Thames. So here at the mouth of the Thames River in New London, sick and weak Elijah Benton is set free. He's placed on a wagon where he makes his way back to Tolland and his family.

Smallpox is deadly. The Benton family knows it. Everyone knows it. If they let Elisha into the homestead, by law, they'll have to be placed under quarantine.

But family ties are strong, and Elisha has suffered enough. Elisha is brought inside and placed in a warm bed. When Jemima Barrows hears word that her love has returned to Talon, she's overjoyed. But then her parents explain that Elisha has smallpox. There's no way for her to see him. The Benton home is under quarantine. Now 17 years old, Jemima is both headstrong and lovesick. So she sneaks over to the Benton homestead.

She scopes out the home for just a few minutes before she takes a deep breath, marches right up to the door...

and walks inside uninvited. It takes only moments for the Benton family to see Jemima is now in their house. And it only takes another second for everyone involved to fully understand what this means. It means, by law, Jemima Barrows can't leave the house. She's now under quarantine as well. Jemima doesn't care. She knows the consequences of her actions. She simply has to be with Elisha again.

So the two are reunited, and Jemima commits herself to being Elijah's nurse. Elijah is covered in scabs and a rash that's oozing pus. He's in the later stages of the illness. It's pretty clear there's nothing that can be done. Not only that, he's highly contagious at this point. Still, Jemima sits by his bedside and tends to the dying man she loves, even though her own life is in peril.

Elijah Benton takes his last breath on January 21st.

When a person dies from smallpox, they're not allowed to be buried in town cemeteries. They're still considered contagious. The sick must be buried near where they died. So Elisha is laid to rest in a grave near a stone wall that marks the edge of the Benton property. Meanwhile, the Benton house is still under quarantine, including Jemima Barrows, who is now ill with the fever. Within a couple of days, as blisters start to form on her skin, it becomes clear she too has smallpox.

Five weeks later, she also passes away. And the thing is, there are rules to society. Even in death, the couple were not married, so they can't be buried next to each other. However, the Bentons recognized Jemima Barrows made the ultimate sacrifice for Elisha. And the two deserve to be near each other in some way. So she's buried several feet away from Elisha on the other side of the carriage path, but still on the family land. And that brings us back to today.

The 1777 burials were not the end of the story. In fact, they mark the beginning of the ghost story here at the Daniel Benton homestead. Now, if we head over here by the side of the road, we can still see the grave of Elisha Benton, as well as this stone and plaque commemorating both of them. Under Jemima Barrows, it reads, his betrothed, who herself died vainly, attempting to nurse him back to health. And Jemima is buried right over there.

So if we've learned anything, it's that when people die inside a house, it tends to leave a mark. We don't soon forget it, even when centuries have gone by. And if those people happen to be buried about, you know, 60 feet from the front door of said house and viewable from the window each and every day...

chances are it's going to conjure up something to those of us left behind. Today, the Daniel Benton Homestead is a museum owned and operated by the Tolland Historical Society, and it still has a tale to tell.

Visitors and staff have reported strange sounds and groans heard inside. Now, skeptics may claim it's just noises made by an old building. Others say it's the spirits of the past still hanging around. Still, the house has stood for 300 years. It's bound to have a ghost or two. Sure. The earliest mentions of a haunting that we found date back to the 1930s, when Flory Bishop Bowring bought this house and lived here.

She used to host a radio program on WTIC. Bowering had a maid who worked for her who claimed she used to see a young girl dressed as a bride wandering through the house and crying. Oh, so sad and tragic. Perhaps we need to take a second look at that word betrothed on the plaque outside.

Now, according to an October 30th, 1985 Hartford Current newspaper article, former docent Yvonne Brown claimed a woman who stayed in the house overnight felt a man's hand cover her face in the middle of the night. Oh, wow. The same article claims a tour guide at the house encountered a dead feeling in the bedroom and suddenly her watch just stopped in the room. She didn't hang around to see if anything else was going to happen. So many little strange tales inside this house. Still, I get it.

These two ghosts, Elisha and Jemima, we can't help connecting with them because their tale is so tragic. They weren't allowed to be together in life, and Jemima sacrificed her life to be with Elisha for his final days. And even in death, the couple are required to keep a proper distance. Considering all they went through, a war, a plague, a quarantine, and dying much too young, of course, they'll haunt us.

So many stories haunt us, which is why we keep exploring them. And we can't do it without the help of our Patreon patrons. This group is the backbone of so much of what we do. Plus, they get early access to new episodes and bonus episodes and content that no one else gets to hear, all for just three bucks per month. Please head over to patreon.com slash new england legends to sign up.

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Haunted houses love them. Always love them. This one, of course, has such a romantic twist. Love is stronger than death. It says so in the Bible. I think there's a song about it.

But just one of those tragic tales, right? So Elijah Benton, of course, got smallpox in the war. Not ideal. No, comes home, and that's highly contagious to the point where you literally have to quarantine the house. And once the house was quarantined, then, of course, Jemima Barrows, who was in love with him, came and barged into the home knowing she wouldn't be allowed to leave. Tried in vain to nurse him back to health.

This happened during COVID. People weren't supposed to be together, but some chose to be together in a tough situation, even though they might get contaminated or... Sick and die. So that's sort of a beautiful notion, right? That someone's in love with someone so much that I would rather be with you in your final moments, and if that means it'll cost me my life...

I accept that. Yeah. Sort of beautiful. Yeah. And you see that when somebody in a couple passes away, the other one might be soon always behind. Yeah. Especially if they're older. Yeah. That happens a lot. It's six months is typical. Like I've seen it in a week. Yeah. Right. Oh yeah. I know. Broke, die of a broken heart. That's of course. And any, any doctor will say there's no such thing. Any human will tell you there is right. Right. And, and you're right. You're absolutely correct. Um,

especially couples that have lived together for, you know, their, their whole adult lives. They built a family, a life together and one passes away and the other one's not too far behind. Um,

Of course, these folks were young. These folks were, you know, in their 20s here. Not even. Middle age, though, back then, right? Mid-age? Actually, you know what? Not far off. You know, yeah, 40, 45 was about all you'd get. 20? I'm so old. I know. At your big age? I've lived such a life. I know. The things I could tell. So, yeah, so Jemima going to be there and then accepting her fate.

and then dying just about a little bit over a month after Elijah died. But the worst part, and this is the part that's—I mean, they weren't married, so they weren't allowed to be side by side in a grave. However, the families knew this and knew that they loved each other so much that they literally—that she died for him. They allowed her to be across the street.

Right. You would think it would get you a plot next, right next to him. You would think they would just say like everything she went through. I don't care. Like convention be damned. Yeah. Right. Uh, they were married in our eyes. She made the effort. Yeah. Like look at what she did. Yeah. She deserves to be side by side for eternity. And instead they're, they're now divided by a road. Of course it's like, you know, his grave and then a stone wall and then a road and then she's on the other side. Um,

but God, you know, the things we do to, to keep people in love away from each other. I know. Right. Even in death, even in death, you're like, what's the harm about putting two bodies side by side? Right. They're not in the same casket. Oh, they thought differently back then about a lot of things. Did they? Yeah.

Do we still do that? You know what I mean? There's still people that would say, like, you're not married, you can't visit the hospital. Right? These are still things that people come up against. It's like a Romeo and Juliet type of thing. Yeah, right. Just trying to keep the people apart. But if they're in love, there's...

There's no way you can keep them apart. No, and that's the beauty of the story. And, you know, did Jemima care that they weren't married? Probably not. Like, she was with him at the end. She got sick and then joined him in the afterlife. And I would like to think that no matter where two bodies are buried, two spirits can be together wherever they please. That's my sincere hope, anyway. But no, it is sort of a heart-wrenching story. And the house is really cool. It's such a great old historic home.

And then the grave is like in the corner of the property because you couldn't get buried in the town cemetery when you died from illness like that. Because they thought. Because it's still contaminated. Yeah. Yeah. You could be contagious. So that's why they were buried. Um,

which was not in the town cemetery, which was far away from the house. They were buried close to the house. I'm not a doctor, Ray. Can't stress that enough. But if they can't be buried a mile away in the town cemetery, let's put them 200 feet from the house. Right, yeah. Where's the well again? I don't know. I don't remember. Is it by the grave? Because maybe we should move them to the other corner. I don't know. It'll be fine. Okay.

Yeah, I don't know. But it is one of those stories that, especially when you read the headstones and you see the stones standing there, it just pulls at the heartstring to be like, why oh why do we have to be so old-fashioned in our thinking that we couldn't just put these guys together side by side? Was it old-fashioned back then or was it just now? Like, back then, would you say old-fashioned? Now we say old-fashioned. Was there enough time to...

to call something old-fashioned way back when. It must have been. Does that make any sense? It must have been, because think about it. Otherwise, they would say to the Barrows family, like, it's your daughter. Bury her on your property. Yeah. Right? Like, we'll bring her over because she died in our home because she couldn't leave. We'll bring her over. You dig a plot on your property. We'll put her there.

someone made an agreement that like, no, she's going to be near the man she loved, just not right next to him. Yeah. So to me, even then they recognize this is stupid. You know what I mean? Right. Because otherwise, if everybody was like, no, these are the rules of society. Old traditions. Come on, let's move on. Let's get a little bit more modern. Yeah. They, they, uh, it was a little bit of a thumb in the nose of the, of the local conventions and which is great because that's how you progress. Sometimes you got to push back a little bit, but, um,

I thought a nice heartwarming story for Valentine's week. Happy Valentine's week.

You are no dummy, but you're kind of acting like one. You used to crush it in school, outsmarting opponents on the field, and now, well, you're still smart, but not exactly challenging yourself. You could be advancing nuclear engineering in the world's most powerful Navy. You were born for it, so make the smart choice. You can be smart, or you can be nuke smart. Become a nuclear engineer at Navy.com slash nuke smart. America's Navy, forged by the sea.