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Archiver > KYCLAY > 1999-02 > 0918952769


From: "Jess Wilson" <>
Subject: Re: [KYCLAY-L] CCCO-1854-Isaac BENGE-malicious stabbing of W. LUCAS
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 19:39:29 -0500


To NDwyer, The Fredrick Linch? in this appearance bond was
Frederick Linck, He was the father-in-law of David Benge, also
listed. The following story is from my book WHEN THEY HANGED THE
FIDDLER as quoted from Rev. Dickey's DIARY :

BORN IN GERMANY

One cold frosty morning recently, 1 climbed to the top of a
knoll near Crawford in the edge of Laurel County. Here in the
Lincks Cemetery, 1 found the grave of Frederick Lincks, one of
our area's more colorful early pioneers. Born in Germany in
1795, he was a soldier in Napoleon Bonaparte's army when he was
about 15 years old. How he came to Clay County, married four
times, fathered 17 children and died at a venerable old age can
be read in the following item from the Diary of the Reverend
John Jay Dickey as told to him by a son, Robert:Lincks, June
28, 1898:

My father was Frederick Lincks. He was born in
Germany. Before he
reached his majority he ran away from home and joined the
army of Napoleon
Bonaparte. He was a wild boy. I have seen his body, it was
all covered with
scars, showing that he had many conflicts in his young days.
His father was
a great friend of Napoleon and through this intimacy, he got
his son released.
He then sent him to Amsterdam to school. After the close of
the term $80 was
necessary to pay board and tuition. His father sent him the
money to pay the
bill but he took the money and paid his passage to America.
Eighty other
students did the same. The ship was anchored about a mile
from shore. The
boys were taken out in a schooner. Several trips being
necessary. The ship
lost her course and many died of overeating when a friendly
ship found them.
They lost many by sickness. (His time with Napoleon was
seven of nine months, the voyage either seven or nine.) When
they landed in America the ship Captain sold them for their
passage denying that they had paid him. James Garrard,
Governor of Kentucky bought him.
He did not know he was sold for a year. He could not talk
English. He learned somehow that he was a slave and he made his
case known to a lawyer who could talk German. He looked into his
trunk and found his free papers, He was about to leave the
Governor, but he hired for a year when Daniel Garrard
brought him to Clay County to oversee negroes at the salt
works. He promised Governor to return, but he never did.
He worked for the Garrards whom he greatly loved. He
married Ist, Nancy Hays
had two children (twin girls): Eliza Parker and Nancy Benge,
Smiling Davis's wife. He then married Polly Cornett, daughter
of old Robin Cornett of Benge. They had nine children: John
Lynx; Susan Stivers; Margaret (Parker); Lottie Lynx now Phil
Wilson; Lucinda, married Lee Chestnut; Patsy, preacher Hiram
Johnson;
Zilpa, Charles Parsley; Robert Lynx, married Eliza Chestnut;
James, married
Jane Bailey - next he married Louisa Robinson and had three
children; Susan,
Hiram and Thomas; next he married widow Black nee Patsy Young to
these were
born Frederick, Henry and Germany the last a daughter. Henry
married Molly
Houston of Benge, where he died about 1890, he was 100 years old
and had 113
descendants. They are very numerous now. My father was soon lost
from his
countrymen who came over with and never saw or heard any from
them. He never
wrote back to his father nor did his father ever know anything
of him.

A FOOTNOTE TO THIS: A few years ago, a Lincks family researcher
in Germany learned of this story in WHEN THEY HANGED THE
FIDDLER, and wrote to a correspondent in America that it was the
answer to a question they had had for years, “ What had become
of Frederick?
JESS WILSON
POSSUM TROT ROAD
MANCHESTER KY 40962

> From:
> To:
> Subject: [KYCLAY-L] CCCO-1854-Isaac BENGE-malicious stabbing
of W. LUCAS
> Date: Saturday, February 13, 1999 11:59 PM
>
> September 1854
> (page 286)
> Commonwealth VS Isaac Benge INDICT
> (Charged with malicious stabbing of W. Lucas)
> Isaac Benge being in custody and admitted to Bail in the sum
of $1000. We,
> Lewis Benge, W. Benge, Fredrick Linch? & David Benge of Clay
County undertake
> that the said Isaac Benge shall appear in the Clay Circuit
Court on the first
> day of the next April term of this court to answer said charge
and shall at
> all times render himself amenable to the order and process of
said court in
> the prosecution of said charge and if convicted shall render
himself in
> execution and if he fail to perform either of the conditions
of that we will
> pay the Commonwealth of Kentucky the sum of one thousand
dollars and this
> cause is continued.
>
>
> ==== KYCLAY Mailing List ====
>
> Searching for missing pieces of our past!
> Post your querie, someone may have that missing piece!
> To post:
>
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http://members.tripod.com/~Sue_1/clay.html
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