Mt. Moosilauke (1840) - Coventry Becomes Benton
". . . It was in the year 1840 that the town took the name of Benton, an act changing the name from Coventry having been passed by the legislature of 1839, which was ratified at the annual meeting in March, 1840, by a vote of 77 to 2, Major Samuel Mann and Ira Whitcher giving the two negative votes.
There were two motives for the change: Coventry was a backwoods town, and Coventry people were the objects of ridicule on the part of the aristocratic class in Bath and Haverhill. If only the name Coventry could be gotten rid of! Then there was no doubt as to the political sentiment of the town. A community, who in the year of 'Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too,' would stand by Martin Van Buren by a vote of 73 to 9, might pretty safely be called a Democratic town. And was not Thomas H. Benton of Missouri, who, according to the plan of the Jackson dynasty, was to succeed Martin Van Buren in 1844, the heir apparent to Democratic idolatry?
Coventry would rid itself of its hated name and at the same time swear allegiance to the coming president, and it did it. But the result of the election of 1840 blasted the hopes of the Missouri senator, and a change of name did not change the character of the town. . . ."
From "Some Things About Coventry-Benton" by William F. Whitcher, 1905.
