Brigadier General Benjamin Dana Fearing was born in Harmar, Washington County, Ohio on 10 Oct 1837. He later became a successful merchant there. His paternal grandfather, the Honorable Paul Fearing, moved to the West with the first colony of the Ohio Company and was admitted an attorney at the first court which was organized in the Northwestern Territory and held at the Block House at Campus Maritus (now Marietta) in 1788. His grandfather was then appointed judge in 1797 in Cincinnati. Paul Fearing was also the first delegate from the Northwest Territory appointed to the National Congress. His maternal grandfather, Benjamin Dana, was also a member of the Ohio Company and of the the party that founded Marietta, and is the lineal descendent of the fourth generation from General Israel Putnum. Benjamin graduated from Marietta College in 1856. During the years 1857-1859 he was in the wholesale book and publishing business (at Moon, Wilstach & Kay) in Cincinnati. By 1863 he worked at the wholesale house of Shaffer and Roberts in Philadelphia, PA. In 1861 he enlisted in the Zouave Guard (later Company D, 2nd Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry) under the command of General Schenck.

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Biographic Encyclopedia of Ohio, Galaxy Publishing Co.; Cincinnati, Ohio (1876).

Contributed by Stephanie Ebel

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