Benjamin Franklin Hood (abt. 1826 - bef. 1900)

Born about 1826 in Pickens District, South Carolina

Ancestors

Descendants

Died before 1900 before about age 74 in Alabama, USA

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Biography

• • Please do not attribute to this Benjamin Franklin Hood any military service whatsoever during the Civil War. This Benjamin Franklin Hood did not serve in either Army. He himself testified under oath that one of his hands was deformed, rendering him ineligible for military service. He was not challenged on this point, presumably because the deformity was obvious to the naked eye. It is not described.

A major source of information regarding the life of Benjamin Franklin Hood is his own testimony before the Southern Claims Commission.

Benjamin filed his claim in 1871, and was interviewed eight years later, in 1879. In 1879, Benjamin said he was 52 years old (putting his birth about 1827), was born in Pickens District, South Carolina, and had lived in Cherokee County, Alabama for 28 years, putting his arrival there in 1851. In her testimony, his wife Mary Jane (also testifying in 1879) said she was 44 years old at that time, and had lived in Cherokee County for 25 years, putting her birth in 1835 and her arrival in Cherokee County in 1854. The marriage must have come soon after as their first child, Susan, was born in 1855.

Both gave their occupation as farming. On the 1870 Census, Benjamin's occupation is given as "Works at Iron Works." One assumes it was possible to do both. Given the farm produce taken by the U. S. Army under Gen. Blair and a sale made to the Confederate Army in 1863 (which was the basis of the SCC's disallowing Benjamin's claim), it appears the farm was productive.

In his testimony, Benjamin repeatedly asserts that he was consistently in support of the Union, but said, "I was deformed in one hand and could not go into the army." The kind of deformity is not elaborated upon. Further on in the questioning Benjamin said, "I had some distant relatives in the Rebel army. I had no sons to go to the war." This is not just a manner of speaking. Benjamin's eldest son was born in 1862, and the next son was born in 1867. Benjamin signed each page of his testimony in his own hand.

Benjamin and Mary Jane had ten children: Susan (1855-?), Ella (1860-1909), William Thomas Sr. (1862-1922), Nancy (1865-1950), Charles (1867-1941), Louis Porter (1869-1953), Emma (1871-?), Ida J. (1875-1973), Minnie Lee (1878-1926) and Joseph Benjamin, known as "Joe B." (1879-1961), all of them born in Cherokee Co., Alabama.

Benjamin's exact date of death is unknown. It is also probably unknowable. He is shown on the 1880 Census as having an abscess of the liver, and therefore was unable to work. By the time of the 1900 Census, he had died. His place of burial is also unknown, although multiple exhaustive searches have been made, online and in person, and by more than one person.

An unsourced rumor exists that Benjamin was buried on his farm in a wooded area. It's impossible to vet this information, and I only include to acknowledge that it's out there, and could be correct. If you stick pins in a modern map to mark the places mentioned in the various records to do with Benjamin and his immediate relatives, as well as the people he mentions in his SCC testimony, one thing that is immediately clear is that most of them are very close to the northern shore of Weiss Lake, which since 1958 has covered over 30,000 acres of Cherokee County. Without being able to tell how likely it is that this has hidden something we would otherwise be able to find, it is within the realm of possibility.

Biography written by Dianne Hood, May, 2019

Sources

• Southern Claims Commission, Disallowed Claims, Report 9, Office 59; Claim No. 6782, Benjamin F. Hood, Cherokee Co., Alabama; printed copy of file from NARA.
• Cornwall Furnace (Cedar Bluff, Alabama), article at Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornwall_Furnace_(Cedar_Bluff,_Alabama)
• Cedar Bluff, Alabama, Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Bluff,_Alabama
• Weiss Lake, Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weiss_Lake
• 1850 U. S. Federal Census; NARA Microfilm Series M432, Roll 66, page 197; Randals District, Cobb Co., GA, Dwelling 1403, Family 1406. Benjamin is on line 9 of the page. (The given name is spelled "Benjamine" on this Census. Reading further, it can be seen that the enumerator spelled all entries of the name "Benjamin" as, "Benjamine," causing some transcribers to consider this person female, even though the column for "Sex" clearly says, "M".)
• 1870 U. S. Federal Census; NARA Microfilm Series M593, Roll 7, page 306A; Township 9, Range 10, Post Office: Gaylesville, Cherokee Co., AL, Dwelling 63, Family 63, household begins on line 24.
• 1880 U. S. Federal Census; NARA Miscrofilm Series T9, Roll 6, page 282; Cherokee Co., AL, Dwelling 43, Family 43, beginning at line 44 and continuing onto the following page. (The infant named William Thomas Hood is the son of Benjamin's sister, Ella, and was later known as William Thomas Gray.)