CHARLES BENTLEY
b. 23 August 1819, Tyringham, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, to John and Mary (Chapin) Bentley
d. 3 February 1895, Bangor Township, Marshall County, Iowa
m. 17 March 1846, Wabash County, Indiana
Cordelia Baker
b. 1 August 1829, Cattaraugus County, New York, to Peter and Catherine (Marvin) Baker
d. 18 July 1905, Laurens, Pocahontas County, Iowa
Children with Cordelia Baker:
- Mary Jane (1847-1913) married Nicholas Moore
- Peter John Lewis (1849-1918) married Caroline Charlotta Moore
- George Silas (1850-1852)
- Harriet Adelia (1853-1854)
- Joseph Marvin (1856-1944) married Bonnie Bell Johnson
- George Edwin (1858-1949) married Margaret Ann Valentine
- David Waldo (1860-1906) married Eunice Etta Marshall
- Rebecca Josephine (1862-1901) married Thomas Hudson
In the fall of 1840, Charles Bentley, along with his brothers, Joseph, Ezra, and Silas, and their families, moved west. They left Berkshire County, Massachusetts, crossed Lake Erie on a ferryboat, and followed the Wabash River to settle in the woods of southwestern Wabash County, Indiana. They had an ashery west of Pioneer. The Baker family had settled in Wabash County in 1841 on the Indian Reservation. In 1853, Joseph Bentley went to see what the land was like to the west. The Bentley brothers sold their homes and started west about the first of September 1854. There were four couples and fourteen children in horse- drawn covered wagons. They reached Bangor Township, Marshall County, Iowa, on 12 October 1854.
Submitted by:
Barbara Vorseth Benson
Wyoming MI