Individuals >> Benton, Myron Beecher (1834-1902)

Poet.

Myron Benton, the cousin of Joel Benton, was born in Troutbeck, NY. He has been described as someone who "was not much given to worrying about the universe" (Robinson 10). Edwin Robinson does not consider Benton's poetry to be anything special, but he notes that the "man himself was his most important contribution to the world that he loved so much." There is some uncertainty as to Benton's association with Pfaff's, but his friends included Ada Clare, Joel Benton, John Burroughs, Richard Henry Stoddard, and "apparently almost every one else who had the good fortune to know him" (Rawson 103; Robinson 10). He was an ardent admirer of Henry David Thoreau and also the recipient of the great existentialist's last letter.

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References & Biographical Resources

Allen, Gay Wilson. The Solitary Singer: A Critical Biography of Walt Whitman. New York: MacMillan, 1955. [more about this work]

Benton was a friend and correspondent of Burroughs'. Allen reports that Burroughs wrote Benton several times in 1864 with his impressions of Whitman. Burroughs also asked Benton to arrange a lecture for Whitman in Poughkeepsie similar to those arranged in Washington. Acccording to Allen, nothing came of this request (309). [pages: 309]

Benton, Myron. Songs of the Webutuck. Poughkeepsie, N.Y.: Press of the A.V. Haight Co., 1906. [more about this work]

[pages: FP(.ill)]

Morris, Roy Jr. The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. [more about this work]

[pages: 153]

Rawson, A. L. "A Bygone Bohemia." Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly. 1896. 96-107. [more about this work]

A member of Clare 's coterie of Bohemians. [pages: 103]

Renehan, Edward, Jr. John Burroughs: An American Naturalist. New York: Black Dome Press, 1998. [more about this work]

[pages: 59-66, 115, 136, 140, 162, 227-228, 295]

Robinson, Edwin Arlington. "A Note on Myron Benton." Thoreau's Last Letter. 9-12. [more about this work]