Kay's Family History and Genealogy

Johann Heinrich Bensing (1812 - 1904) was born October 03, 1812 in Wallroth, K�rhessen, Germany, and died April 27, 1904. He married Anna Elizabeth Joeckel July 14, 1835 in Wallroth, K�rhessen, Germany.

Children of Johann Heinrichm and Anna Elizabeth (Joeckel) Bensing are:

Johannes "John", founder of Malinta, Henry County, Ohio; Johann Nicholas "John" "JN" of Kentucky and Wilhelm.

John Bensing (1836-1898) son of Henry and Elizabeth Bensing, was born April 2, 1836 in Wallroth, Hesse Cassel, Germany. He died November 27, 1898 in Malinta, Monroe Township, Henry County, Ohio.

John Bensing emigrated to the United States in 1852, and first settled in Monaca, Beaver County, Pennsylvania. where he married 1853, in Beaver County, Pennsylvania Anna Barbra Ifft, daughter of Peter and Anna (Günther) Ifft Sr., she was born June 7, 1834 in New Sewickley Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, she died July 28, 1919 in Malinta, Monroe Township, Henry County, Ohio. John and Anna Barbra are buried at the Hoy-Shunk Cemetery, Henry County, Ohio.

After emigrating, John Bensing resided in Beaver County, Pennsylvania for 11 years. For seven of those years he owned and operated a ferry which crossed the Ohio River from Phillipsburgh (now Monaca) to a point between Beaver and Bridgewater, which was known in those day as the lower or Beaver ferry.

In 1863 he sold the business and purchased a tract of 240 acres which was sold as being full of good hardwood but which turned out to be in the Black Swamp in Northwestern, Ohio. It was, for obvious reasons, one of the last areas of Ohio to be settled.

In the autumn of 1863 John Bensing with his wife, his oldest three children, Jacob, Katie, and Anna, and his brother-in-law, John Ifft, headed west to Kenton, Hardin County, Ohio, where they remained during the winter. The men went on ahead to inspect and make improvements on their property, which was known for many years as the Bensing Deadening.

Around the 1st of March in 1864 the family then traveled by rail as far as Ottawa, Putnam County, Ohio, where they remained a couple of days with a relative, who transported them through the Black Swamp over the corduroy roads with his team.

There in the fall of 1864 they moved into a log cabin on 5 cleared acres, and in the spring of 1865, a baby girl was born, who was named Lizzie Malinta after whom Malinta, Henry County, Ohio.

He took sick, first with the intermittent fever, and one after another the whole family came down with the bilious fever. They were all sick at the same time except 5 year old Katie on whom fell the care of the sick. After the fever came the ague. This was more than the family could stand and in the fall of 1865 they left Ohio, leaving everything behind, and returned to Pennsylvania.

The family stayed with Anna's parents, Peter and Anna (Günther) Ifft Sr. and John Bensing went to join his brother-in-law John Ifft (who had left Henry county in the spring of 1864) in Petroleum Center, Venango County, Pennsylvania on Oil Creek, to drill oil wells during the big Oil Rush of the 1860's. In the spring of 1866 his family joined him.

In the fall of 1866, John Bensing and his family, John Ifft and his family, once again returned to Northwestern Ohio. By the spring of 1867 a sawmill had been erected and the firm of Ifft & Bensing commenced business. John Ifft remained his partner for two years, then John Ifft had his skull injured by the explosion of a grind stone in the mill, and returned to Beaver County, Pennsylvania.

John Bensing remained in the lumber business for some years and sold 500,000 feet of lumber a year. The Bensing Lumber Company also sold coal and made cement blocks by hand. His sons continued the lumber business after he passed away. The sawmill burned in the fall of 1895.

Malinta, Ohio was platted and laid out by John Bensing in 1880 with 26 lots. He cleared and brought under cultivation over 200 acres of land in Henry County, Ohio.

The Bensing home stood for many years along the old angling road which extended on across the present east-west road which was known as the Yellowstone Trail. The angling road extended across the present Route 109 and then curved around the present pond which was in the early days the east bank of the Turkey Foot Creek.

John Bensing opened and operated the Bensing Store. The first school in Malinta was above John Bensing's store, and he donated the land on which the present Trinity Lutheran Church stands.

The Bensing's operated a clay tile mill and brick yard from 1870 to 1911. Jacob Bensing, John's son, invented a Brick and Tile Cutting Machine. A sorghum Molasses Press was operated from 1870 to 1890. When Bernice Aurand Sloan was a girl, the brick and tile mill and sheds were owned and operated by her grandpa, John Bensing, also he made sorghum molasses at this place. John Bensing had a Jersey Dairy about 1888 to 1895.

John Bensing was active in the development of the village of Malinta. Their extensive cherry orchards and grape arbors supplied the needs of many Malintaites and kept all the family occupied with fruit and labor at harvest time.

Original peony plants of red, white and pink on the former John Bensing homestead on the southwest corner of Turkeyfoot Avenue and County Road L are as beautiful and healthy as they were 75 or more years ago. Walter and Myra Orthwein have lived on the property since 1943. Also, Arthur and Lorena Orthwein Badenhop who built their home on the northeast corner of the Bensing farm have peonies of the original stock. The Bensing barn, now the property of Paul and Frieda Orthwein, is lined on the south side with peony bushes started from the original.

Children of John and Anna Barbra (Ifft) Bensing are:

1. Jacob "Jake" Bensing was born 16 Feb 1854 at Monaca, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, He died: 25 Nov 1912 at Malinta, Monroe Township, Henry County, Ohio. He never married. He Invented a Brick and Tile Cutting Machine, patented in 1889.
2. Catherine Ann "Katie" Bensing was born 5 Jul 1860 at Monaca, Beaver County, Pennsylvania. She died 5 Apr 1934 at Henry County, Ohio, she married 8 Jun 1879 at Malinta, Monroe Township, Henry County, Ohio, William Riley "Buzz" Aurand. He was born 21 Jan 1854 at Amanda Twp., Hancock County, Ohio, and he died 5 Mar 1930 at: Malinta, Henry County, Ohio.
3. Anna G. Bensing was born 1863 in Monaca, Beaver County, Pennsylvania. She died February 27, 1920 in Henry County, Ohio. She was married to James Hicks.
4. Elizabeth "Lizzie" Malinta Bensing was born: 9 Mar 1865 at: Malinta, Monroe Twp., Henry County, Ohio, and died: May 1941. She married William Sickmiller, who was born 1856, and died Oct 1946.
5. Henry Peter "Pete" Bensing was born 27 Dec 1868 at Malinta, Monroe Township, Henry County Ohio, and died: 31 Mar 1917 at Malinta, Monroe Township, Henry County Ohio. He never married.
6. Charles Bensing was born 1871 at Malinta, Monroe Township, Henry County, Ohio, and he died in 1940. He married Emma Dauber who was born in 1874 and died in 1940.
7. Ella Nora.

According to Anna Barbra (Ifft) Bensing's obituary she was the mother of 11, there were four more children, as yet unidentified.

Ella Nora Bensing (1874-1970) daughter of John and Anna Barbra (Ifft) Bensing, married October 19 1890, in Malinta, Monroe Township, Henry County, Ohio, Martin Elmore Brobst (1866-1935), son of Bramus "Breamus" Brobst and Mary "Polly Anna" Spangler. They resided in Malinta, Henry County, Ohio; Jewell, Defiance County, Ohio; Johnston and Cortland, Trumbull County, Ohio. Please see The Brobst Family page for Martin and Ella's children and descendants.

John Nicholas Bensing

John Nicholas Bensing, (1849-1897) son of Henry and Elizabeth Bensing, filed his intention September 13, 1860 in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and was naturalized September 17, 1871 in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. He married August 03, 1871 in Mahoning Co., OH (?) Elizabeth Rupert.

I'm still researching this brother of John Bensing, he resided in Kentucky according to John's Obituary. Bob Cody has him as living in Indiana.

Sources:

1. Bensing, Jake, Onward to the Father, Home of the Departed, John Bensing, 1836-1898 .
2. Bensing, John, Certified Copy of Death Record, The State of Ohio, Henry County Probate Court , (Record of Deaths, 1898), Vol 4 Page 14.
3. Hitchcock, Olga Varie (Brobst), Grandparents of Olga Varie (Brobst) , (Letter to Kay Starr Schaney, January 1983).
4. Howard, Diane (Dunbar)
5. Kimpel, Kathleen Lois (McCurley)
6. Cody, Robert Aurand
7. Hoy (Shunk) Cemetery, Harrison Twp, Henry Co., OH

Useful Links for researching this line:

• Beaver County, Pennsylvania
• Beaver County, Pennsylvania - Genealogical Society
• Henry County, Ohio - USGenWeb
• The Henshaw, Riggenbach, Thomson, Treece, and Tuin Families (Bensing/Aurand)

This page was last updated on: , Copyright© 1998-2013
by Kay Starr Schaney