Benjamin West, son of Rev. Thomas West of Rochester, Massachusetts. His nearest sibling was the celebrated Rev. Samuel West D.D. of the Hollis Street Church at Boston. Benjamin West graduated Harvard 1768. Then to Needham to study divinity with his brother, Rev. Samuel West. He was licensed to preach and commenced his ministrations at Wrentham, MA. Finding this unsatisfactory, he left the ministry, never to preach again. He returned to Needham, to the home of his brother Samuel and shortly thereafter commenced his clerkship in the office of Abel Willard, Esq of Lancaster, MA. After completing his clerkship he was received by Simeon Olcott of Charlestown, NH. In July l773 he est. himself in Charlestown as an attorney at the time the Revolutionary War broke out. At the same time, a position in South Carolina was offered and he accepted the offer, riding horseback from Charlestown to South Carolina, a journey that took two months. He was employed by Mr. Gibbs, a wealthy planter. When the war reached South Carolina he joined a group of sixty or seventy young men of the city to form a company of light horse. He was taken prisoner. Illness forced his return to his brother in Needham, after which he returned to Charlestown, NH in l779. He married June 8, l78l Mary McCarty, the daughter of Rev. Mr. McCarty of Worcester, MA, who died Aug 23, l803. He married second in 1806. Mrs. Frances Gordon, widow of the Hon. William Gordon. She was the daughter of the Hon. Joshua Atherton of Amherst, NH.
Benjamin West, son of Rev. Thomas West of Rochester, Massachusetts. His nearest sibling was the celebrated Rev. Samuel West D.D. of the Hollis Street Church at Boston. Benjamin West graduated Harvard 1768. Then to Needham to study divinity with his brother, Rev. Samuel West. He was licensed to preach and commenced his ministrations at Wrentham, MA. Finding this unsatisfactory, he left the ministry, never to preach again. He returned to Needham, to the home of his brother Samuel and shortly thereafter commenced his clerkship in the office of Abel Willard, Esq of Lancaster, MA. After completing his clerkship he was received by Simeon Olcott of Charlestown, NH. In July l773 he est. himself in Charlestown as an attorney at the time the Revolutionary War broke out. At the same time, a position in South Carolina was offered and he accepted the offer, riding horseback from Charlestown to South Carolina, a journey that took two months. He was employed by Mr. Gibbs, a wealthy planter. When the war reached South Carolina he joined a group of sixty or seventy young men of the city to form a company of light horse. He was taken prisoner. Illness forced his return to his brother in Needham, after which he returned to Charlestown, NH in l779. He married June 8, l78l Mary McCarty, the daughter of Rev. Mr. McCarty of Worcester, MA, who died Aug 23, l803. He married second in 1806. Mrs. Frances Gordon, widow of the Hon. William Gordon. She was the daughter of the Hon. Joshua Atherton of Amherst, NH.
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