Biographical sketch extracted from:
Biographical and historical record of
Adams and
Wells counties,
Indiana. Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1887. p. 815.
JOHN G. BENNETT, farmer,
Harrison Township, was born in Huntingdonshire,
England, January 7, 1827, son of John and Mary (
Tansley)
Bennett, natives of the same place. His father was in limited circumstances, and he was put to hard work when very yonng, going from one field to another attending to stock. When only nine years of age he was taken from school and went to work for wages on a farm. His work was plowing, for which he received from 37 to 40 cents a week. He made his home with his parents until he was sixteen years of age, then hired out for $25 per year. The second year he received $35, and from that time until twenty-four years of age he received $60 a year. In this way he saved enough money to bring him, in May, 1851, to the United States to make a visit. He was induced by his uncle to remain here, and the following year his parents came. He remained in
Chester County,
Pennsylvania, a year, and in June, 1852, went to Canada, and thence the following September came to
Wells County,
Indiana. He worked for Robert
Turner in building one mile of plank road on the Bluffton and
Fort Wayne road. In the fall of 1852 he and his father made 2,000 rails and chopped 100 cords of wood in the winter of 1852—'53. Besides making a living, all the money he received was a five-franc piece. The following spring he rented a farm of his former employer for one season. The next year he dug wells and quarried rocks in Bluffton at $1.00 per foot, furnishing everything himself. In the summer of 1854 he purchased forty acres of land upon which he now lives, that had very little improvement upon it. He commenced at once to improve his farm, but during the summers of 1856—'7—'8 he was engaged in building a plank road from Warren to
Huntington for James
Crosbie. Since that time he has been engaged in farming, and from time to time has added to his first purchase until he now owns 184 acres of land, seventy-five acres being in a good state of cultivation. His father died September 16, 1864, aged seventy-five years, and his mother died October 8, 1877, at the age of seventy-four years. May 19, 1860, he was married to Miss Emma
Lafferty, daughter of David and Nancy (
Westfall)
Lafferty. She was born in
Ohio and came to
Wells County when four years of age. Of their ten children, six are living—John C., Mary Ann, Ida J., George D., Alice M. and Lena Ellen. George E. died at the age of sixteen months, and three died in early infancy. Mr. Bennett is a member of the Old-School
Baptist church, and politically is a Republican.