The Benton family arrived in Seattle in the early 1900s and lived on 29th Ave NE in what is now the Ravenna-Bryant neighborhood, near Bryant School.

Beginning in 1906, the Bentons became real estate investors who sold lots and built houses on 28th & 29th Avenues NE.

Benton family members founded the Benton’s Jewelers company in 1909.  Today the street clock of Benton’s Jewelers is a reminder of this family’s impact in northeast Seattle.

Benton’s Jeweler’s street clock has been set up at the former Baskin-Robbins site at Union Bay Place NE, now Aegis Laurelhurst. Photo by Valarie, December 2023.  The site was fenced as of this photo because the Aegis Laurelhurst building was still under construction.

Land acquisition and development in early Seattle

John Tenny Jordan 1832-1886 was an early building contractor and mayor of Seattle.

It has been said of Seattle’s earliest white settlers that they would eventually get rich if only they could hold on long enough to see the city grow and develop.  Early arrivals in the 1850s such as Arthur Denny, Willam Bell and Henry Yesler filed claims for large tracts of land.  However, decades went by before the land increased in value.

John Tenny Jordan of Maine arrived in Seattle in the 1860s and worked as a building contractor in stonework.  He was active in Seattle civic life and served as Seattle’s second mayor, 1871-1872.

Like other early Seattle settlers, John Jordan claimed land which he probably intended only as an investment, as the property was located so far “out of town” that it was hard to imagine that it would ever be populated.  In 1872 John Jordan filed a claim for 160 acres of land in today’s Ravenna-Bryant neighborhood of northeast Seattle.  He didn’t actually live on-site, and we don’t know if he even ever visited the property; he could have just filed a claim.

J.T. Jordan’s land is shown on the top center line of this map of northeast Seattle, marked as four squares of forty acres each.  The top line of the map is NE 60th Street, with John Jordan’s land from NE 50th to 60th.  His land claim was bordered on the right by 35th Ave NE.  The map was created in 1889 and was meant to show the first land claims by white settlers, even though many, like John Jordan, were deceased by that time.

At center/top is written the name J.T. Jordan showing four squares of land which are forty acres each. His land claim extended from NE 50th to 60th Streets., bounded on the right by 35th Ave NE.

John Jordan’s northeast Seattle property

At age 54 in 1886, John Jordan died of a heart attack.  His wife had predeceased him and, after their eldest daughter Abbie was married in 1887, there were four more Jordan children who were still under the age of 21.  For this reason, the executors of John Jordan’s estate began to sell his properties to raise money for the support of the Jordan children.

It was very common to sell land in sections of forty acres, which is a five-block square.  One of the first sections of John Jordan’s land to be sold, was bought in 1889 by the Catholic church for use as a cemetery.

The present Calvary Cemetery is shown on the map of land claims above, as the southeastern square of the four, forty-acre squares of John Jordan’s land. It is bordered on the right side by 35th Ave NE.  Today’s Calvary Cemetery is located between NE 50th to 55th Streets, 30th to 35th Avenues NE.

This blog article will tell about another section of John Jordan’s land, located on the north side of NE 55th Street across from Calvary Cemetery.  Few people lived on the north side of NE 55th Street until the Benton brothers began a development called Ravenna Orchard in 1906.

Becoming an orchard 

The sections of John Jordan’s land on the north side of NE 55th Street, from NE 55th to 60th Streets, were sold gradually, in small portions.  These properties passed through different hands and were undeveloped until 1906, when a real estate attorney, Hugh Benton, began selling lots.

In the 1880s John Jordan’s home at Second & Columbia Streets in today’s downtown Seattle, had an orchard of apple trees.  It is possible that he might have gone to visit his land purchase in northeast Seattle and planted an orchard there, too, to prepare the site for future development, but we can’t be sure.  The trees might have been planted at NE 55th Street by a later property owner. Planting apple trees on a site with no houses was something that white homesteaders did to prepare for later occupancy.

As of 1906, when Hugh Benton began selling lots along 28th and 29th Avenues NE, it was noted in the real estate advertisements that the lots had apple trees, and so the site was named Ravenna Orchard. We know that apple trees take at least seven years to grow until the first crop of fruit, which shows that a landowner earlier than the Bentons had probably planted the trees.  The first houses on these streets were built in 1908, including one for the Hugh & Mary Benton family.

Hugh & Mary Benton arrive in Seattle in 1901 

Josiah Henry Benton of Vermont, 1816-1907.

Hugh Benton, born in 1872, was one of eight children of the second family of Josiah Benton, a farmer in Vermont.  Hugh and his siblings were Josiah’s children with his second wife, as Josiah’s first wife had died in 1855.

The census of the year 1900 showed Hugh Benton, age 28, living in Boston, Massachusetts, and working as an attorney.  We may wonder if he was given help by his eldest half-brother, Josiah Benton Jr., his father’s first child, who was thirty years older than Hugh.  Josiah Jr. was also an attorney in Boston and may have helped Hugh establish himself in law practice.

I am always curious to discover the reasons why people came to Seattle in early years but sometimes we can only make guesses as to their motives.  Hugh Benton would seem to have been established in a law practice in Boston but then we see him making a sudden jump out to Seattle in 1901.  He may have been bitten by “western fever” and thought he would start a new life in the young city of Seattle.

The New York building as pictured in 1906. It was demolished in 1922 and replaced with the Dexter-Horton Building, 710 Second Avenue.

As of 1901 Hugh Benton, age 29, was listed in the Seattle City Directory as an attorney with a downtown office.  In 1905 he moved his office to an even more prestigious building called the New York Block, in Seattle’s business & banking center on Second Avenue.  This building was replaced in 1923 with another on the same site, the Dexter Horton building at 710 Second Avenue.

It was a bold undertaking for Hugh Benton to cross the USA and try to establish himself in Seattle, because he was already married with two children to support.  Hugh’s wife Mary must have also had a bold and adventuresome spirit.  She was the daughter of a minister whose family had lived in several different places, so perhaps Mary was willing to launch out West.

We may guess that the Bentons, like other early Seattleites, wanted to “get in on the ground floor” of development in Seattle, be part of the growth of the city and acquire land which would hopefully increase in value.  Hugh Benton seemed to be an enterprising person who wanted to work in real estate transactions.

The Bentons in Ravenna

W.W. Beck at Ravenna Park

From their arrival in 1901, through 1907, Hugh & Mary Benton’s home address was simply listed as “Ravenna” or Ravenna Park.  This seemed to indicate that the Bentons might have been living close to William & Louise Beck who were developing the Ravenna in Seattle community.

There were some conveniences at Ravenna such as a post office, and a railroad stop at about 2401 NE Blakeley Street.  A streetcar line ended at Ravenna Park, so by this means Hugh Benton could commute to work in his downtown office.

The beginnings of Ravenna Orchard

A “plat” is an area of land, any size, for which a map is made of lots and streets.  Filing a plat usually means that the landowner intends to sell lots.  Ads for sales of lots in the Ravenna Orchard Addition began appearing in the Seattle newspapers in 1906.  Property records showed that Hugh Benton, and later his brother Benjamin, were landowners & developers of the streets named Ravenna Orchard, from NE 55th to 57th Streets on 28th and 29th Avenues NE.

In the years 1906 to 1909 all of Seattle was in the run-up to a big event, a world’s fair to be held on the campus of the University of Washington.  The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition brought infrastructure to the University District which until that time did not yet have paved streets, or water lines and electricity.

Beginning in 1906 enterprising real estate speculators like the Bentons and others, advertised house lots for sale in the growing areas to the northeast of the University of Washington campus.  Real estate ads emphasized the convenient location not far from the university with “suburban” advantages, such as land around the houses for gardens, plus the apple trees in Ravenna Orchard.

In this period, investors from Detroit, the McLaughlins, named and platted Laurelhurst in place of the old sawmill Town of Yesler.  Crawford & Conover platted Exposition Heights at what is now the Union Bay Place intersection.  Rev. John C. Norton platted University View in the blocks around today’s Bryant School on NE 60th Street.  Like Ravenna Orchard, ads appeared in the newspaper for lots in these plats, beginning in 1906.

In 1908 the Hugh Benton family was first listed in their new house at 5558 29th Ave NE in the Ravenna Orchard Addition.  By that time a streetcar line had been extended eastward across NE 55th Street with its end point at the corner of 35th Ave NE.  This was very convenient for residents of Ravenna Orchard to get on the streetcar for shopping trips or for commuting to work.

The home of the Hugh Benton family built 1907. This photo is 1938. The house was later renumbered 5558 29th Ave NE.

Hugh Benton continued to work out of a downtown office for his law practice.  He facilitated land transactions, such as helping the Benton’s friends the Palmers, who named a plat for him.  Benton’s First Addition is located on the north side of NE 110th Street by today’s Jane Addams School.

More Bentons in Ravenna Orchard 

Just in time for the AYP Exposition which opened in June 1909, Hugh’s brother Benjamin Benton moved to Seattle and opened a real estate sales office on the corner of 42nd & University Way NE.  The Benjamin Benton family built a house at 5700 29th Ave NE in Ravenna Orchard.

The Benjamin Benton home, built 1908.  This photo is from the 1938 property survey of King County.

Benjamin Benton was eight years older than his brother Hugh and at age 45 in 1909, Benjamin was making a big life change both for himself and for his family.  He and his wife Carrie had lived all their lives in rural areas of Vermont and New Hampshire.  Instead of farming, Benjamin now listed himself as a building contractor in Seattle.  He proceeded to construct and sell houses in the streets of the Ravenna Orchard development on 28th and 29th Avenues NE, just north of NE 55th Street.

Dwight Benton 1893-1986 of Benton’s Jewelers

Benjamin & Carrie Benton came to Seattle with their two children who were still at home, Dwight, age 16, and Louise, 13.  The Benton’s oldest son, Paul, married in New Hampshire in 1909.  With his new wife Ruth, they joined the family in Ravenna Orchard in Seattle, in time for the AYP Exposition of 1909. Paul opened Benton’s Jewelers at 4319 University Way NE, a location which would get good traffic of people on their way to the fair.

A few years later, Paul’s younger brother Dwight trained as a watchmaker and joined his brother at Benton’s Jewelers. Dwight married and like his brother Paul, he lived in a house near his parents on 29th Ave NE in Ravenna Orchard.  His cousins, adult children of Hugh & Mary Benton, also lived on 29th.

The Dwight Benton home, built 1912, photograph of 1938.

Benton’s Clock 

The history of Seattle’s street clocks is that downtown jewelers highlighted their shop’s location by a street clock at the store entrance.  Benton’s was the only jewelers in northeast Seattle to have a street clock.

Over the years the Benton’s Jewelers street clock moved with the store to its two locations in the University District, 4319 and 4343 University Way NE.  The clock had been bought new for $700 in 1915.  In 1976 it was struck by a car and taken for repairs which cost $7000.

Benton’s Jewelers street clock. The buildings in the background are gone now.

In 1986 Benton’s Jewelers store and its clock moved to the NE 45th Street side of the Union Bay Place intersection at what local residents called the “Baskin Robbins corner” east of the University Village shopping center.  By that time Benton’s was represented by Dwight’s son Benjamin (named for his grandfather).

Benton’s Jewelers operated for nearly 100 years.  After the company closed, a corporation, Aegis, purchased the entire block for building a new senior-living residence to be called Aegis Laurelhurst at 3200 NE 45th Street.

Aegis purchased the Benton’s Jewelers street clock and after restoration work, as of December 2023 the clock has been set up for display at the new building.  We have the Benton’s Jewelers street clock as a reminder of the Benton family and their long residence in northeast Seattle.

Benton’s Jewelers street clock in a new placement at Union Bay Place NE, December 2023. Photo by Valarie.

Sources:

Bureau of Land Management, land claim of John T. Jordan, 1872.

Census and City Directory listings; genealogical records; newspaper search.  The old City Directories list addresses and occupations, which is helpful to trace people between the years of the census.  Directories are available in several locations including the Municipal Archives, Seattle City Hall in downtown Seattle.

HistoryLink Essay #978, Calvary Cemetery Seattle, by Laura Angotti with David Wilma, 1998.

“Money Times,” Seattle Daily Times, December 13, 1977, page 10. According to this article with comments by Ben Benton, the Benton’s Jewelers street clock was bought new for $700 in 1915.  At the 4343 University Way NE location, the clock was struck by a car in 1976.  It cost $7000 to rebuild the clock and it was put back in place after eighteen months of repairs.

Property records and house photos from the Puget Sound Regional Archives, repository of the property records of King County.

Seattle street clocks – more about the history of clocks in Seattle.

Benton’s Jewelers street clock on University Way NE. Photo circa 1984.