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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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BENSON, JOHN STAFFORD (1838-1907)

BENSON, JOHN STAFFORD, doctor; b. Chatham, 10 May 1838, s/o Stafford Benson and Sophia Elizabeth Samuel; brother of Michael Samuel Benson and Joseph Black Benson; m. 1st, 1863, Louisa Helen Nesmith, d/o John Nesmith and Catherine Dawson, and 2nd, 1892, Margaret Beairsto Bowser, d/o Henry W. Bowser and Katherine McDonald; d. Chatham, 22 Jun 1907.

John S. Benson studied at the County Grammar School under James Millar and was trained in medicine at Guy's Hospital in London. In 1861 he was admitted to membership in the Royal College of Surgeons of England and returned to practice in Newcastle. For the first four years he was a business partner of his father. In 1866, although his office remained in Newcastle, he opened a drug store in the new Canada House in Chatham with which he continued to be involved until 1871 or later. Meanwhile, he was having difficulty collecting from his patients and warned in an announcement in 1870 that he would be suing those whose accounts were in arrears.

In 1875 Benson moved to Chatham, and in 1879 he entered into a medical partnership with his brother Dr Joseph B. Benson. This lasted for five years, during which time, as elsewhere noted, he and his brother made important contributions to the early success of the Hotel Dieu Hospital. In 1881 he angrily declined appointment to Chatham's first local board of health, claiming that no powers or guidelines for action had been set out by the government. He agreed in 1884, however, to be named to succeed Dr John Thomson as physician to the Marine Hospital.

Benson was the surgeon of the militia company commanded by Maj. Robert R. Call which guarded the jail at Bathurst in the wake of the Caraquet riots of 1875. He was a member of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Chatham and was ordained an elder in 1878. He also played an active part in the Masonic fraternity and was worshipful master of Northumberland Lodge in 1874. He had a long-term interest in school affairs, serving as secretary of the trustees of one of the earlier Chatham districts and as the first chairman of the Chatham School Board after the incorporation of the town in 1896. He resigned as a trustee in 1898.

Benson's first wife, Louisa Helen Nesmith, died in 1891, at age forty-nine, and he was remarried the following year to Margaret B. Bowser. She died in 1906 and he in 1907, survived by eight children from his first marriage. Several of his sons and sons-in-law were engaged in business and banking.

Sources

[b] church records [m] NB Courier 25 Jul 1863; Advance 29 Dec 1892 [d] Advocate 26 Jun 1907 / Advance 28 Jul 1881, 27 Jun 1895, 10 Sep 1896, 1 Dec 1898; Advocate 21 Apr 1870, 3 Feb 1875, 7 Apr 1875, 26 Mar 1884, 22 Jul 1891, 28 Dec 1892, 25 Jul 1906; Fraser (C); Gleaner 14 Sep 1861; Manny Collection (F182)


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