A SOLDIER OF THE WAR OF 1812,EARLY MINNESOTA SETTLER

Benjamin was a young Fifer in Ohio during the War of 1812--a Private in his cousins unit, Capt.Jacob Bartholomew Co., Col. Nathan King, 3rd Ohio Frontier Rgt.He saw action with the frontier warfare, scouting with this company comprised primarily of family members.

He married Susannah (Susan) Lucas, daughter of capt John Lucas, another soldier in his unit and friend of his brothers and cousins. The couple married in Harpersfield, Ohio, but they headed further West as their large family grew and they sought new opportunities in the open lands of the West.

This was a frontier family, accustomed to rigors of frontier farming and the ways of clearing lands, building log homes, hunting and fishing in a frontier manner.The family still has among its treasured artifacts a carved Powder Horn made and used by family members. The family farmed in Wisconsin and then moved again to territorial Minnesota, working with their adult sons and in-laws to ground new farms, first in Hennepin County(Richfield) then in Mower Co. and finally in Northfield area. As an elderly couple, Benjamin and Susan lived with their daughter in Northfield, Minnesota. The Sioux Indian Uprising of 1862 and Civil War era insecurities recentered their family in the relatively safe urban areas of southeastern Minnesota of Northfield.During this period all of their sons and son in laws were in uniform, fighting to protect Minnesota's western frontier from Indian pred

Benjamin's grave in Northfield was marked in 1984 by Sons of the War of 1812 and Northfield, MN, American Legion Post #84.

Ref: "Known War of 1812 Veterans Buried in Minnesota" A. Fennell, 1997.

Benjamin Bartholomew was born in the frontier woodlands of New York state, a frontiersman. After the death of his father, he moved West with his mother and an entire family party of Bartholomews, Harpers and Patchins; first to Ohio. to the new areas of the Western Reserve, where they settled in Ashtabula County. However, Benjamin with his wife, Susannah (Lucas) and their adult children and their families, again moved further west in 1843.-- to Rock County, Wisconsin, and then over the Mississippi to Minnesota Territory. The family eventually settled in the farm areas of Northfield, Minnesota. Both Benjamin and his wife died there while living there with their daughter, "Fanny" Augustus (Bartholomew) Phillips and both are buried in the Northfield Cemetery.