BENJAMIN H. SANDERS, a substantial merchant of Terral, Jefferson county, is a brave son of the south, typical of its best element, which knows not the meaning of permanent defeat. He has greatly prospered in his business ventures several times, and various unfortunate combinations of circumstances have also brought his fortune low, but he has pluckily and cheerfully commenced the fight anew, and now, although well advanced in years, is energetically and rapidly coming into the front ranks of Oklahoma merchants. Born in Barnwell district, South Carolina, on the 4th of March, 1841, Mr. Sanders is the son of a farmer of that state who was practically ruined by the devastations of the Civil war. He himself received but an imperfect common school education, and in 1862, when he had just passed his majority, enlisted in the "Edisto Rifles," incorporated into the Confederate service as Company G, Twenty-Fifth South Carolina Infantry. His command was stationed on the islands about Charleston harbor, and acted as a coast guard under General Hagood. It participated in the battle of Fort Fisher, where Mr. Sanders was captured January 14, 1865, being taken thence and confined as a prisoner of war at Elmira, New York, until the following August. On account of the termination of the war, he was then liberated. Among the first of his ventures in civil life, after the war, was his management of a sawmill in Snake Swamp, Orange county, South Carolina, after which he served, successively, as a plantation overseer and as a clerk in a store at Bamburg, also in that state. In the latter capacity he accumulated a small capital, with which he removed to Atlanta, Georgia, and began buying cotton. This venture absorbed his savings, and more, but he secured a salaried position as a buyer for S. M. Inman & Company, and in a responsible position was sent to Houston, Texas. Prior to this time (1881) he had also failed in business at Tennille, Georgia; so that he really came to Texas, in the year named, after having met with his second adversity. From Houston he removed to Cleburne, central Texas, where he bought cotton and engaged in the coal and grain business. His transactions in cotton were both in the foreign and domestic trade, and were so disastrous as to force him across the Red river into Oklahoma, in 1899. A man fifty-eight years of age, of varied business experience, he was still undaunted, and finding no other opening went into the cottonfield and drew his wages as a picker. He next kept books forAnderson Brothers, at Terral, and then ventured into the restaurant business as a proprietor, and subsequently purchased a stock of merchandise. He has continued in the mercantile business with unflagging zeal, confidence and characteristic ability, and may yet retire from his strenuous career in well deserved affluence.
     The parents of Benjamin H. Sanders were John T. and Mary (Howell) Sanders, his father being a slave-owning farmer in South Carolina. The elder Sanders was left an orphan when a small boy, accumulated some real estate and personal property before the war, and by that event was practically divested of his possessions. Both father and mother died in South Carolina, the former in 1885, their children being:William C., who died at Atlanta, Georgia, and was a member of a firm of cotton brokers (Inman & Company) ; Benjamin H., of this notice; Sue and Julia, who died single; Henrietta, who married a Mr. Williams and died in South Carolina, and Emma, who became the wife of Carlton Brown and passed away at Savannah, Georgia. In 1872 Benjamin .H. Sanders was married in Jasper county, Georgia, to Miss Bettie Leverett, daughter of W. C. Leverett, a farmer of that county. Two children were born to them,—Lyman, who married Anna Eakin and died in San Angelo, Texas, leaving [page 277] one child, Annie Lee; and Lela Sanders, who died in Texas unmarried.