Pease, Benjamin F., 1822-

Benjamin Fish Pease (1836-1911) was a cooper, soldier and farmer, first in Michigan and later in Armada Township, Buffalo County, Nebraska.

Born in Ontario County, New York to Granger and Anna (Fish) Pease, he moved with his parents to Michigan in 1839. Pease began to learn the cooper trade when he was eighteen, and followed it for five years. His first wife, whom he was married October 24, 1859, was Martha Judd (1838-1868) by whom he had a son, Herbert. His second wife, married May 30, 1872, was Charlotte Odell, by whom he had three children: Charles, Salina, and Floyd.

Pease's interest in abolition began when he heard a lecture by Henry Bibb, who had escaped slavery in the South, and he was later influenced by Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin . He worked for abolitionist political parties prior to the Civil War, and after the fall of Fort Sumter he enlisted with the 8th Michigan Infantry on August 12, 1861. Captured in June of 1862, he was exchanged in January of 1863 and returned to his regiment after a short furlough home. During his enlistment he participated in the Battles of Coosaw and James Island, South Carolina; Pulaski and Wilmington, Georgia; Blue Springs, Kentucky; Jackson, Mississippi; and Knoxville, Tennessee. Towards the end of July 1865, he recounts, the men received orders to prepare mustering-out documents for the regiment, which they did "with a renewed energy," and he and the rest of his regiment returned to civilian life in August of 1865. Pease was mustered out as a first lieutenant.

Pease came to Nebraska in May, 1884, and settled in Armada Township, Buffalo County where he took a soldier's homestead which he eventually expanded to 320 acres. He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) veterans' organization and, according to the Biographical Souvenir of the Counties of Buffalo, Kearney and Phelps in Nebraska (F.A. Battey and Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1890) was "a highly respected citizen in the community."

[Special Collections Research Center gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Elisabeth Burns, descendant of B.F. Pease, in the preparation of this biographical sketch.]