William Benson

William “Bill” Benson was born in Virginia around 1832, almost certainly into slavery. For a man born without legal claim to his own labor or liberty, the course of his life would eventually carry him far from that beginning. In December 1863, during the Civil War, he enlisted in the Union Army at Richland, Tennessee, and was assigned to Company F of the 110th United States Colored Infantry. At the time of his enlistment, he listed his occupation as farmer—an identity claimed in his own hand at a moment when freedom itself was still being fought for.

Benson’s military service was brief. Beginning in March 1864, he went absent without leave, and by June 1865 was formally declared a deserter. Such circumstances were not uncommon. Many Black soldiers left the ranks when word reached them that their families—newly freed but desperately vulnerable—were starving at home, and survival demanded immediate action rather than continued service.

The earliest known record placing Benson in Nevada appears in the March 17, 1876, edition of the Pioche Record, which noted that the Lincoln County Commissioners paid him six dollars for “services and wood cutting.” He remained in the county’s employ for many years, working as a janitor and performing assorted tasks “around the courthouse.” Not every claim was honored; a bill Benson submitted in December 1879 was rejected, a small but telling reminder of the precarious position occupied by many Black laborers in the postwar West.

According to the June 27, 1895, edition of the Pioche Record, Benson “left Friday for DeLamar where he will try life in the gold camp.” From DeLamar he eventually made his way to Tonopah, where he settled into a small cabin behind the Tonopah Opera House. There, on February 24, 1904, Bill Benson died of Bright’s disease—a chronic kidney ailment—compounded by old age. He was buried the following day.

An editorial published in the February 27 edition of the Tonopah Bonanza remembered him as “a character well known throughout the state, especially in the Pioche country, where he had lived thirty or more years.” The paper observed that Benson was “a steady, industrious man, but the money he earned was generally given up to those he thought needed it more than he, and many a man, now prominent in Nevada’s history, has been the recipient of his bounty and generosity.” His final hours, the article noted, were kindly attended by local physicians and friends, including Mr. and Mrs. Tom Edwards, Ben Thomas, and others.

Born in bondage, Benson lived long enough to claim his freedom, cross a continent, and earn a reputation not for what he possessed, but for what he gave—a life shaped by struggle, service, and quiet generosity, and remembered accordingly.