Delight Adams Benham and Is There a Story?

In the beginning there wasn't any special reason for writing about Delight Adams, other than I love her name, and her documents provided many clues to her family, that being of my 3rd great grandparents. I posted a Copy of her Will and her Obituary. She was born June 29, 1819 in Batavia, Genesee Co., New York and died 79 years later.  Her death certificate proved valuable to me when in April 1999, I was able to discover the name of her parent's birth places and the maiden name of her mother. Considering this death certificate was dated July 3, 1898, I was pretty fortunate. I was used to getting those records from some New England states, but this one from New York was a surprise. Her occupation was listed as an invalid! My poor second great-aunt.


The death record is the smallest size of any I have received, shown below.

I have  blogged about two of her nephews. The first, Yates Adams, was discussed in A Suicide or a Murder.  Her other nephew was John Anderson Adams, the manufacturer of vanilla and discussed in Google and the Movies.

From these three documents, I have been able to place all the people named and find additional bits of information. Delight did not have any children, but when she married Franklin Benham, he was a widower with an infant and a toddler, thus she immediately became a step-mother. It was interesting that, in her will, she left nothing to her step-sons. However, six years after her death, one of the sons named his daughter, Delight presumably after her.

She was buried at Batavia Pioneer Cemetery, Batavia, Genesee Co., New York, per several old records, but my cousin was unable to locate a stone on a recent visit there.

With such a pretty name of Delight, I like to think she was happy most of her life. Her ending was pretty sad, being an invalid, but for her Benham in-laws, it was tragic.

I really wanted to find something interesting about her, in other words, I wanted to write a story, not just show copies of documents. With a bit of time, I soon began rolling in information. I had material for a Hollywood movie...murder of a wife, a sentence to death, a reprieve from Gov. Roosevelt, another trial, acquittal, a father who mismanaged money of his deceased daughter-in-law and more. The New York Times, and other newspapers covered this story for almost three years. I will be writing a follow-up. Stay tuned.

Part 1   Delight Adams Benham and is there a Story?

Part 11 Delight Adams Benham and There is a Story. (I hope you will read the comments, among the best I've ever had.)

Part 111 DelightAdams Benham and The Rest of the Story.