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Hobson-Whitney Cemetery ~ Marilda Benson ~ part of the Marion County Pioneer Cemeteries of Oregon
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Benson, Marilda
LAST: Benson FIRST: Marilda MID: 
GENDER: F MAIDEN NAME: Greenstreet TITLE: Mrs.
BORN: 8 Jun 1829 DIED: 3 Mar 1900 BURIED: 
OCCUPATION:  
BIRTH PLACE:  Missouri
DEATH PLACE: Marion Co., Oregon
NOTES: 
1850 MO CENSUS - Marinda [sic] Greenstreet, age 20, b. Missouri, is enumerated with Absalom Greenstreet, age 53, occupation farmer, b. Kentucky, and Sarah,age 49, b. Tennessee, along with John, age 22, farmer, Pamelia, age 19, Miranda J., age 17, Elizabeth, age 14, and Sarah E., age 11, all born in Missouri.
1880 OR CENSUS - Charles Benson, age 64, occupation farmer, b. Virginia, is enumerated with Marilda, age 50, b. Missouri, along with Charles H., age 21, farm laborer, Fermon E., age 18, farm laborer, Marilda C., age 17, John R., age 15, and Dora B., age 12, and William E. D., age 9, all born in Oregon. 

BIOGRAPHICAL (Source - Steeves, pgs 214-216):
Absalom Greenstreet came to Oregon by ox team from Missouri, arriving in the fall of the year 1851, and settled in the Waldo Hills. He was born on September 28, 1797. His wife, Sarah, was born on September 14, 1800. The names of their children were as follows:
Minerva, who was born November 2, 1820. She married Miner Meade.
Mariah, born August 22, 1822, married Mr. Caldwell.
Melzor M., born August 30, 1825; died as an infant.
John M., born March 16, 1826.
Marilda, born June 8, 1829; she was married to Charles Benson, October 10, 1852; died at Sublimity, March 3, 1900.
Parmelia, born March 1, 1831; married Fails Howard.
Marinda J., born May 2, 1833; married Edwin Northcut.
Morgan B., born June 21, 1835; died 1844.
Elizabeth A., born March 15, 1837; married a man by name of Rufus Caspell.
Sarah Ellen, born December 28, 1840; married James Downing.
A small infant that died in the east.
The Greenstreet family had more than the ordinary experiences in crossing the plains in 1851. Indians by that time had become alarmed at the great hordes of white folk coming to take over their hunting grounds and kill off their game and did everything they could to terrorize the pioneers and many along about that time were massacred or badly treated by the savages. The Greenstreet train was not a large one and they were more or less prey to the Indians.
At one time, Miss Marilda, a young girl of about 20 years, was lagging behind the train about two miles, to let the stock graze, as it was her work to ride on horseback and look after the loose animals. All at once she heard the bloodcurdling cry of the Indian war whoop and immediately was surrounded by forty-seven savages, headed by their chief. She hurriedly dismounted while the cattle were stampeding in all directions and faced her tormentors. She was made of brave mettle and faced those wild Indians without flinching. She looked at them singly and in groups, defying them to kill her. All this time they were riding around her, slashing at her with their tomahawks. She said their hatchets came so near her head that she could feel the swish of the air in her ears, yet they did not actually strike her. When they tired of that game, the old chief road up and, slapping her on her shoulder he said, “Brave squaw, brave squaw!” and literally lifted her in his arms and tossed her first to one brave and then to another, all the while saying “brave squaw.” They eventually left her and rode on ahead toward the train.
Marilda rounded up the frightened cattle and went on ahead, expecting to find the whole train annihilated; but when she came up to it, she found that every man in the train had taken to cover under the feather beds, except her father, Absalom Greenstreet. He had gone out to meet the Indians. They demanded a steer to eat, so as to save their lives. Mr. Greenstreet shook hands with all the Indians and killed the lead steer, and before it had quit quivering, the savages were hacking slices of the raw hams and devouring it like gluttons. When they saw Marilda, they demanded bread of her. She remembered a sack of flour they had in camp that had kerosene spilled on it, so she set to work making bread from this flour and their appetites were so voracious that it kept her baking until all the flour was gone. This bread she baked in a Dutch oven over coals on an open fire, the only method the pioneers had on that long, arduous trip. This Dutch oven is treasured in the home of her daughter, Mrs. Schelberg, at this time. After gorging on raw meat and the bread from the kerosene flour, the Indians were all taken ill and nauseated, and Marilda said she had hoped it would kill all of them; but after unloading their overburdened stomachs in nature’s own way, the Indians rode on ahead of the train.
Marilda said when the savages surrounded her on the plain and began brandishing their tomahawks, she was so tired and soul-weary from so many hardships she did not care much of they did kill her.
Next day they overtook a camp of immigrants where every soul had been killed and terribly mutilated. The trees were decorated with the scalps of the women, while all the feather beds in the train were ripped open and feathers were flying everywhere.
Mrs. Greenstreet, familiarly known in later years as Grandma to every one in the country, was a sweet, spirited old lady and much beloved. She spent the last 15 years of her life in the home of her daughter, Mrs. Benson (Marilda), and one of her granddaughters told me that the grandchildren all loved Grandma very dearly and enjoyed having her in their home. Grandma used to visit for weeks at a time in the home of the writer and here she was a welcome visitor, though of no blood kin to the family.
While crossing the plains, Mrs. Greenstreet walked nearly every day. It was her habit to walk on ahead of the slow moving oxen and as she walked she would gather buffalo chips in her ample dark cotton apron and when by the sun she saw it was about noon, she built a fire of these chips and by the time the train came up, she was ready to make the coffee for the noon meal. Buffalo chips were about the only fuel to be had along part of the route, for earlier caravans had cut away all the brush along the way. After the noon meal she trudged on ahead to look out for a good camp for the night and bring in her load of chips.
Because of the many delays along the road and perhaps because they had not started with ample supplies, this train ran out of provisions and were faced with starvation. Game had become scarce and for three days the caravan was reduced to just weak solution of coffee. This was all they had to drink and not a thing to eat. At the end of the third day the hearts of these tired, weary folk were gladdened by meeting a man by the name of Churchill, a Waldo Hills settler, who was on his way back to the states and from him they got supplies to last until they could stock up at the next trading post. They had no money with which to pay and it was three years later, after Mr. Churchill returned to Oregon, he got his money for the supplies sold them on the plains that saved their lives.
The girl, Marilda, upon relating these experiences in crossing the plains to her daughter in after years, said many nights she had sat on the wagon tongue out in the drenching rain watching their stock and wagons to give the alarm in case of Indians and when she arrived in the Willamette Valley she did not have a shoe left and her dress was worn off to the knees. Such an experience for a girl of twenty!
After their arrival in the Waldo Hills, the first thing she did was to go up in the foothills and make over seven hundred fence rails and haul them out by ox team to help fence her father’s donation land claim. It was while making and hauling these rails that Mr. Benson, her future husband first saw her.
Absalom Greenstreet was of the rough frontiersman type and it was said he was much given to profanity, so prevalent in those early times when men forgot their Maker, and a very outspoken southern sympathizer. He did not live very many years in the new country he had endured so much hardship to find, though his children all married and his descendants in the Oregon country are legion.
It has been told of the Greenstreet family that upon reaching the Waldo Hills, Oregon, and not yet well known, a funny experience awaited two of the daughters. It was just at the time that the land grant of 320 acres of land to a married woman was to be cut down and many bachelors of that time made a wild scramble for wives at the last day. The wife was not so necessary to them, as it was necessary to have a wife in order to get the coveted 320 acres of land.
Fails Howard was a young bachelor of this class, over the wife question, putting off the evil day until the very last day upon which a married woman could file on a claim of this sort. In sheer desperation he began to look about for a wife. Women of marriageable age were scarce, so he asked the advice of some of his men friends. Finally someone told him of the Greenstreet family just newly arrived and directed him there, as he had heard there was a big family of girls in that home. When he got to their cabin the first one of the Greenstreet girls he saw was Miss Marilda. He at once told of his errand and found the young lady had other plans. She wanted to go to school and anyway she told him in no uncertain terms that she did not care to marry a man she did not know. Mr. Howard crossed the yard to where Parmelia was at work and told her his errand and proposed they get married so she could get 320 acres of fine land as well as a husband. She was of a different mind from her sister and answered, “Sure, I’ll marry you; a farm like that looks good to me and so do you.” They were married that afternoon and like many other stories we read, lived happy ever after. Mr. Howard was of a fine family and they were very happy together.
OBITUARY: 
INSCRIPTION: 
Mother
Marilda Benson
1829 - 1900
SOURCES: 
Saucy Survey & Photographs
Brown, Dyal & Marsh
1850 MO CENSUS (Franklin Co., Dist 31, FA #146)
1880 OR CENSUS (Marion Co., Sublimity, ED 87, pg 154C)
Steeves, pgs 214-216
ROW:   
IMAGES:
     
 
 

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