RUFUS F. BENTON. Thirty years ago, when the cattleman. and his herds were the sole disturbers of Indian sovereignty in the Indian Territory, there came into the southwest corner of the old Chickasaw Nation a young cowboy who rode attendance upon the herds of J.W. Dobkins, still remembered as a Red River ranchman of considerable wealth and note in that period. Rufus F. Benton, who is , known to practically all the citizenship of Jefferson county, Oklahoma, was the cowboy who came across the river from Cooke county on that day of March 17, 1878, and who, as events proved, became permanently identified with a region that is now one of the wealthiest sections of Oklahoma. Eighteen years old at the time, a vigorous, healthy knight of the plains, he continued to herd the cattle and look after the interests of ranchman Dobkins for six years, lacking only six months of the time spent in school. In those days of intense practical activity on the plains, educational advantages were esteemed less highly than in the same sections to-day, and it was a well considered review of his own literary defects that led him to seek schooling after he had well started on a career.
     Mr. Benton finally became a partner of Mr. Dobkins, the basis of their agreement being the "increase plan," so common among cowmen then and still known to the craft. The partnership lasted eight years, and the country east and southeast of Ryan was the scene of their success and some minor reverses. Since the dissolution of their partnership in 1892, when the beeves were shipped to market. and the profits and stock divided, Mr. Benton's influence as a cattleman increased year by year with the multiplication of his herds until they numbered as high as 5,000 during several years of his range operations. Several times a year he chanced the cattle markets, and made or lost small fortunes as the market happened to be favorable or unfavorable. About the time the north and south line of railroad was built through this section of the Chickasaw country, Mr. Benton, being a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation through his marriage, fenced all the country he could and according to Indian law became proprietor of all the land on which he placed these improvements. His cattle grazed quietly over the hills and grew into productive wealth with the minimum of care and expense on his part, while he gave most of his time to opening a farm and bringing into cultivation the rich bottom soil along the Red river valley. Here he grew the roughness which was the only feeding his cattle needed above the grass of the range. With the approach of statehood, which he perceived would limit the range, he curtailed his cattle interests and increased the farming operations until he had fifteen hundred acres under the plow. With the allotment of lands in severalty he selected lands that he had previously fenced, and by subsequent purchases he has increased his holdings in Jefferson county, which lies in the southwest corner of the old Chickasaw Nation, until he is noted as the proprietor of 1,700 acres, besides owning a similar amount across the Red river on the Little Wichita in Clay county, Texas. On the latter ranch he keeps what remains of his once noted herd of cattle.
     Mr. Benton bears witness to the once common practice of "mavericking" during the range cattle era. It was a common practice, he states, among the cattlemen for a man to place his brand on any animal over a certain age, wherever found, and in the spring time the branding iron played an important part in the accumulation of wealth. It was during the particular season of the year when this practice was at its height that Benton, then little more than a boy, joined a cattle outfit engaged in mavericking. For a calf out of each bunch as his reward, he built the fires and kept the iron hot while the ownership of young cattle was being rapidly and sometimes questionably established. His brand was the flying "A," and though in early years it was insignificant, it came to be one of the most familiar in southern Indian Territory.
      Mr. Benton was born in Cooke county, Texas, February 18, 1860, and responded to the call of opportunity to enter the cattle business before he had really enjoyed all the training and experience that belong to boyhood. His father was William F. Benton, who was born in Georgia, in 1826, and as a boy accompanied his father (William Benton) to East Texas, and from there moved to Cooke county in 1859. He was a private in the Confederate service during the Civil war, lived the life of a farmer, and died in Cooke county in 1902. Of Irish stock, the Benton family have long been characterized by tendency to agriculture as a pursuit and to Democracy as a political faith. By his first wife William F. Benton had the following children: Susan, wife of A. W. Dobkins; Sarah J., wife of William Poasous, of Ryan; James, deceased; andWilliam, of Belcherville, Texas. His second wife, Elizabeth Sanders was a daughter of Black Brazwell, a Louisiana farmer, and widow of Pleasant Sanders. The Sanders children were: Mattie, deceased, the former wife of Jesse Johnson; and Laura, wife of Amos Johnson. By his second marriage William F. Benton had: John, who died at Tuscpla, Texas; Blake, who died in Montague county, Texas; Rufus F.; andGeorge, deceased. William F. Benton married for his third wife Mary Scott, a widow with two children (William and Mary). Two children were born of this marriage, Lizzie, wife of W. M. Miller, of Ryan, and Zelda, deceased. Rufus F. Benton married, March 9, 1889, Mrs. Julia Gray, daughter of Wiley and Amanda (Holloway) Johnson. The Holloways were Choctaws. By her first husband, W. C. Gray, Mrs. Benton had three children, Effie, wife of Gilbert Benton; Minnie. wife of Joshua W. English; and Mrs. Willie Fullerton. Mr. and Mrs. Benton's children are: Cora, who died. young; Elmer, Amanda and Lola.