Benjamin Lisk Bessac

Abstract

Born on March 12, 1807, at New Baltimore, New York, Benjamin Bessac’s mother died when he was just 12 days old leaving his father a widower with an infant child. On October 2, 1825, Bessac walked to Lockport where he boarded a packet boat bound for Albany. It was during this time that he passed through the fledgling settlement of “Newport,” which he described as “…that low, muddy, and as I thought unsightly young village” and proclaimed it to be “…a queer place on which to build a town.”