He was freed after the Civil War and given a mule. would begin its Civil War, which would loom over the country for the next five years.īy 1865, things would change for John and all he needed was little opportunity. Once James Benson died and his estate divided among his family, John was sent to Talladega, Alabama to work as a slave for an heir. We don’t know if James was John’s father, but it wouldn’t be far-fetched. In the 1850s it was not uncommon for slave owners to birth children with the Black women they kept in bondage, then sell them to other plantations. John also had a sister he was very fond of who was sold to a plantation in Florida. If John was born a slave, then his mother was a slave. There is barely any mention of John’s mother or father, but they’re a few things we know. His slave owner James Benson owned a plantation in Alabama near Kowaliga Creek. John Jackson Benson was born September 1850 on the shores of Kowaliga Creek in Alabama. But before there was a lake there was John Benson and his small Black community near Kowaliga Creek. The dam is used to generate hydroelectric power for the Alabama Power Company.īecause of its size, Lake Martin is a very popular tourist destination and it hosts events throughout the year. The enormous Lake has nearly 700 miles of shoreline and covers 41,000 acres. Lake Martin, which is located In Tallapoosa, Elmore, and Coosa counties in Alabama, was created in 1926 after the construction of the Martin Dam. But because any remanence of the once flushing town was drowned under one of the largest lakes ever made, folklore prevails. The majority of this story is steeped in the truth.
and you’ve probably never heard of either of them. His son would continue his legacy by building a school as well as the first Black-owned railroad in the U.S. In the 1800s, a Black man from Alabama named John Benson escaped the thumb of slavery, traveled across state lines to save his sister, then became a wealthy man who founded a Black community on the same land where he was once a slave–but that’s just half the story. MORE: The Antebellum Tale Of Black Slave Girl Molly And The Haunting Of Sorrel-Weed House
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