Solomon John Pence (1815-1885) descended from Heinrich Bentz of Germany and from a later Bentz/Pence who came to America during the Revolutionary War. Solomon and his brothers, Gabriel and Allen Wallace Pence were surveyors from Illinois, working out of the Galena Federal land office and surveying land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. In approximately 1839, they were working on the Old Military Road between Iowa City and Dubuque, usually surveying at night, using the stars for reckoning, and signaling each other with a lantern. There is a plaque on Highway 1 near Iowa City that designates the furrow dug with a plow to mark that early road for the construction crews. Highways 1 and 151 follow the route. The Pence brothers had an older brother George who may or may not also have been a surveyor. While in Galena, the Pence men became friends with a Ulysses Grant who loved his whskey and poker playing. After the Pences moved to Iowa, Grant rode his horse from Galena to visit, but eventually they had political differences. Grant, 1822-1885, was elected President of the United States in 1869 and served two terms.

Solomon Pence Sr.

The brothers liked the area around (now) Baldwin, planting Indian corn in the spring, returning in the fall to harvest it. They brought their families to that area. Solomon found the land in the lush area that became south Wyoming Township and north Oxford Township to be beautiful and desirable. The soil was rich and the water and timber abundant. Sometime between 1861 and 67 he claimed land there for himself, moved his family to the southwest, and added to his acres for several years. He owned in Sections 1 and 2 of Oxford Township in 1867. By 1877 he had 360 acres in Oxford and 280 in Wyoming. He finally owned 1000 acres, a huge farm for the times. His land became known as Pence Ridge. A country school there, Pence School.

There were still Indians in Oxford and Wyoming Townships in the 1860s. They called on the Pences, sat on the floor while they visited, and demanded flour which they were given. Solomon often went hunting and fishing with Indians, sometimes for weeks at a time. The friendship continued between the Sac and Fox Indians and Solomon’s son Solomon. Perhaps appreciation for the Indians’ culture began when the Pences first settled in Rock Island County, Illinois, coming from Indiana in the fall of 1827. In the Rock Island area they winter-camped in an abandoned Indian village. When the Indians returned to their village in the spring, the white men learned they had been staying in the lodge of Black Hawk (1767-1838). In 1828 the Pences moved down river, near Oquawka. The surveyors’ father, Judge John Pence, died there in 1841. The Sac and Fox were of the Sioux nation, having conquered other tribe/s here for hunting territory.

Czech emigrants were moving into northeast Oxford Township beginning in the mid 1850s. Pence hired them for breaking prairie, planting, and harvesting. Vincenc Luk arrived in 1854, just south of the Pence property. In Luk’s personal story of 1885 or 86, he wrote "In the spring all Czechs received work from a farmer sewing or planting corn. I received daily 50 cents….. That farmer……. his name was Solomon Prutz" (Pence). Nick Benischek arrived in Oxford Township in 1879. He also worked for Pence and lived in a brick house on Pence property. Benischek’s grandson still farms in that area. Joseph Pavelka worked for Pence for 8 years.

Pence married Anna who died in 1838. He married again, Hannah Bees or Beers who had two daughters from a previous marriage, one Phoebe. Together Solomon and Hannah had ten children between 1842 and 1863. All died young except Curtis Monroe Pence (1842-1889), Solomon J. Pence Jr. (1858-1916), and Melissa (1860-1948) who married Joseph A. Mizaur Jr. There are descendants of Solomon Jr. and Melissa in Jones County in the 21st century. Wayne Pence of Onslow, Iowa treasures a watch that belonged to Solomon Pence Sr., recalls stories told him by Melissa, and has a copy of a journal from a Pence party’s trek across the country for gold. Though Solomon wasn’t in that party, his experiences would have been similar:

Solomon Sr. and his young son Solomon joined the 1849 Gold Rush, leaving with other Pence men in 1862 or 63 by ox train. His daughter Montana (1863-1883) was named for the territory the adventurers were traveling in when she was born in Iowa. They were gone for two years and returned even richer. His land legacy continues today. He and several of his family are buried in the Pence Cemetery in Jackson County, on Highway 64 and northeast of the former Pence holdings. Wayne Pence has the chair that Solomon made from an ox yoke and a log on that long trip out west. Solomon’s one-hill corn planter, made of wood and leather, is displayed in Heritage Museum, Oxford Jct. IA.

Pence genealogy can be found at http://www.pipeline.com/~richardpence/
the work of Richard Pence, descendant of Solomon Sr.’s brother George.

J.Nelson, October 2004, with info provided by Wayne Pence.