CHARLOTTE (nee-CURTIS) BENEDICT
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BLOCK 5
LOT : 46
ROW : 4
COLUMN : 3
SUB. R/C : SOUTH
GRAVE # 5
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Charlotte (nee-Curtis) Benedict
b. September 20, 1810
Newtown, Fairfield County, Connecticut
d. November 14, 1876
Decatur, Macon County, Illinois
buried: November 15, 1876
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FATHER
Carlos Curtiss
(1786-1844)
MOTHER
Polly Sample
(1788-1858)
MARRIED
Kirby Benedict
(1810-1874)
October 22, 1835
Deleware County, Ohio
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CHILDREN
with Kirby
Worthene Curtis (nee-Benedict) Smith
(1847-1939)
Kirby L. T. Benedict
(1852-?)
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NOTE:
Charlotte's great-great-grandfather,
Benjamin Curtiss Sr.,
fought in the
FRENCH & INDIAN WAR |
NOTE:
Charlotte's great-great-grandfather,
Nathaniel Nichols,
fought in the
REVOLUTIONARY WAR |
NOTE:
Charlotte's great-grandfather,
Benjamin Curtiss Jr.,
fought in the
REVOLUTIONARY WAR |
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A STORY OF CHARLOTTE'S HUSBAND - KIRBY & ABRAHAM LINCOLN
DRUNKEN FRONTIER JUSTICE
Editors at Papers of Abraham Lincoln occasionally attempt to find a document that
has been reproduced in a secondary source. Such a search can be simultaneously frustrating and
serendipitous, as was the case with a February 1861 letter written by New Mexico Territory Supreme
Court Chief Justice Kirby Benedict to president-elect Abraham Lincoln. Benedict and Lincoln were
Illinois eighth judicial circuit colleagues for sixteen years, in one instance working on a case
with Stephen A. Douglas. On May 29, 1850, the Danville Illinois Citizen compared Benedict and
Lincoln while the two were at the Urbana circuit court. "[They] are the direct antithesis of each
other and are as widely separated as heaven and earth," the report began. "Benedict is easy,
graceful and fascinating. Lincoln is rough, uncouth and unattractive. The former is kind, affable,
and courteous; while the latter is stern, solemn, and unfamiliar ... As far as oratory is concerned
he [Benedict] transcends, by far, any member of the Bar on the Circuit." In 1853, Benedict parlayed
his notoriety into an appointment by President Franklin Pierce as associate judge for the third
judicial district of the New Mexico Territory. President James Buchanan re-appointed him in April
1857, and thirteen months after that named Benedict chief justice of the territorial Supreme Court.
Benedict was seeking reappointment to the chief justiceship when he wrote Lincoln on February 17,
1861. Director Daniel Stowell found a reproduction of this letter in a 1961 biography of Benedict
by Aurora Hunt. The biography cited the document to Justice Department records at the National
Archives in College Park, Maryland. Assuming that the document might likely be located in the
Records of the Attorney General's Office, Assistant Editor Ed Bradley began a search for it there,
ultimately locating the envelope that had contained the letter in box 123. Unfortunately, the actual
letter was not with the envelope in this box. Assuming that the letter was lost or displaced,
Bradley continued searching other boxes from this group of records, looking for other letters
written to or by Lincoln. Much to his surprise, the letter was in box 144. The scanned the envelope
and letter and reunited them in digital form after a presumably long separation.
The letter itself begins with congratulations to Lincoln on his election. "Permit me to express my
pride and gratification of one with whom, but a few years since, I was so much associated in our
prairie land, now so distinguished by the fame of her sons." After citing Lincoln's "unreserved
labor and energy and stern and unsullied integrity," Benedict turned to his long service in New
Mexico. "Much of the time," he lamented, "I have been the only judge here and have performed the
duties incumbent upon others rather than see my branch of service blamed and justice not
administered." For the entirety of his tenure, Benedict claimed that he had "striven to keep myself
apart from the parties or factions that sometimes rage mid the people." With his term expiring in
the summer of 1862, Benedict expressed his "desire to remain" in office as chief justice. Lincoln
re-appointed Benedict in June 1862 to a four-year term - a term that would prove to be quite
controversial. Over the years, Benedict had acquired a reputation as a heavy drinker, which gave
Lincoln pause in making the appointment. Indeed, in December 1863, New Mexico Secretary of State
William F. N. Arny reminded Lincoln that when Benedict was re-appointed the year before "it was with
the understanding that he quit his inebriety and you requested me to inform you if he did not keep
his promise." Benedict himself alluded to his drinking history when he reassured the president in a
January 1865 epistle that he would never give him cause for embarrassment. Unfortunately, it
appears that Benedict was never able to wean himself from the bottle. Arny reported in a December
1863 letter that the chief justice "has lapsed into his old habits ... he visits the gambling Hells
and drinking saloons ... [and] has been drunk in the streets." The following month, the New Mexico
Territory House of Representatives condemned a Benedict communication to that body for its
"scurrilous .. insidious and malicious" tone. An unsigned endorsement of the resolution requested an
unnamed recipient to alert the President. "Benedict promised Mr. Lincoln that he would cease
tippling, but it seems he goes it strongly in that way. His conduct and habits have made him very
unpopular." Even quondam supporters such as New Mexico delegate to Congress Francisco Perea and
fellow New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Sydney A. Hubbell admitted that Benedict's drinking had
gotten out of hand, with Hubbell informing Lincoln that on one occasion Benedict was so drunk when
he took his seat on the bench that he could hardly sit in his chair. There were other
controversies, most related to Benedict's meddling in political affairs. According to Arny,
Benedict's unwarranted intervention "produced irregularities" in an election in Taos County. The
chief justice often wrote editorials for the Santa Fe New Mexican and, according to Hunt, served as
its de facto editor from June 1863 to Mary 1864. Thus after denying in February 1861 any
participation in political activities, Benedict casually informed Lincoln three years later that "I
have written nearly all [the New Mexican's] editorials" in recent months. "My contributions and
labors in this matter are all gratis. I wanted a paper here, which would in its columns,
affirmatively, support you and your administration." Less than a year after writing this letter,
Benedict had the audacity to deny either editing the New Mexican or interfering in political
matters. For all the trouble Benedict caused him, Lincoln never removed the controversial justice
from his post. This loyalty may have been due in part to Benedict's clever reminders in his
correspondence with the president of their shared experience riding the Eighth Circuit. Thus a June
1861 letter opens with a reference to "early and kindly associations over the prairies, about
courthouses and at the bar in our beloved Illinois." Or, perhaps Lincoln maintained faith in
Benedict's legal knowledge despite his old friend's trouble with liquor. In answer to some of
Benedict's detractors, Lincoln allegedly replied, " Well, gentlemen, I know Benedict. We have been
friends for thirty years. He may imbibe to excess, but Benedict drunk knows more law than all the
others on the bench in New Mexico sober." Yet with Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, Benedict
lost his main benefactor, and Andrew Johnson declined to re-appoint him. After a fruitless gold
expedition in the headwaters of the Gila River in the summer and fall of 1866, Benedict resumed his
career as a lawyer, eventually disbarred in 1871 for failure to follow new rules of practice before
the New Mexico Territory Supreme Court. In 1873, Benedict became the editor and proprietor of the
Santa Fe New Mexico Weekly Union, until his death early the next year.
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