Kenneth H. Bentley (deceased), was one of the prominent farmers of the Second
District, and was born in Bertie County, N.C., April 9, 1833. When he was
eleven years old his parents moved to West Tennessee, and settled in Haywood
County, but moved to Lauderdale County a few years later and settled in a
short time on their present homestead, where K. H. Bentley, Sr., died March
24, 1866, and the mother died October 5, 1886. Our subject was the second
child of three sons and four daughters. He had the advantages of a good
common-school education and made farming his chief occupation, and was before
the war an old-line Whig, but a stanch Republican afterward, and with his wife
belonged to the Baptist Church. Mr. Bentley was married in Crockett County,
February 27, 1861, to Miss Palona J. Ferguson, daughter of Douglas Ferguson;
they had eleven children, nine of them living: Joseph H., Walter E., Austin
A., David E., Jonathan A., Bertie, Altie, Kenneth O., Lucy A., and Laura E.
Mrs. Bentley, the mother of this family, was born in Dyer County, Tenn.,
February 20, 1844. In 1861 the family moved to Crockett County, and in two
years to Missouri and settled in New Madrid County, then returned to Crockett
County, and two years later to their present home, where Mr. Bentley died May
17, 1886. The farm consists of 150 acres of fine productive land, managed by
the sons of Mrs. Bentley, Austin A. having chief control. It is pleasantly
located ten miles north of Ripley on the Key Corner and Ripley road, and is
well improved.

Goodspeed’s Biographies of Lauderdale Co., TN