Rich but Forgotten
Richard Bennett III was “the richest man in all the colonies and a most influential one.” (Maryland Genealogy Trails: Anne Arundel County Maryland Colonial Families) In fact, when he died in 1749, his obituary in the Maryland Gazette said, “he was supposed to be the richest man on the continent.”
Richard’s mother, Henrietta Maria Neale Bennett, married Philemon Lloyd after Richard’s father died; therefore Philemon was Richard’s step-father. Philemon was the son of Edward Lloyd and Alice Crouch (my 9th great grandparents). Their daughter Alice Lloyd married John Watkins II.
Richard Bennett started his journey to riches by inheriting his father’s estate at birth (his father died four months before Richard was born) as well as property owned by his grandfather.
Dickson Preston wrote a Sunday feature story that fully explored Richard’s rise to wealth and his descent to obscurity. (Dickson Preston. Ozymandius Beside the Chesapeake. Baltimore Sun. Baltimore MD. 5 November 1972. P246 FF)
After his mother’s death in 1697 when Richard was 30, he began buying as much land as possible. His passion seemed to be “collecting land and estates.” He also appeared to be quite the entrepreneur. He operated his own stores where he imported goods from England. In addition, he built his own fleet of ships for “use in English, West Indies, and coastal trading.”
According to Dickson Preston, “some internal seed seemed to drive him to collect more and more land, more and more money, more and more economic power.” Richard took advantage of the economic depression during this time in history that forced many landowners into bankruptcy and used the misfortune of others to acquire more property. If someone hadn’t paid his rent or couldn’t prove he had a valid title, Richard swooped in and procured the property.
In 1749, Richard, 82, fell from a horse and broke his hip. He began to decline rapidly and was on his deathbed by September 1749. While on his deathbed, Richard who was a widower and had no children, apparently made Edward Lloyd III (step-brother of Richard, son of Philemon, grandson of Edward) his main beneficiary. (Edward III and Richard had bad blood between them, much of it due to religious differences. Richard’s mother, Henrietta influenced him greatly and he became a devout Catholic as she was. Edward III was a Protestant. There was serious conflict between Catholics and Protestants going back to 1650-1658 when “Puritan revolters prohibited the practice of Catholicism.” (www.napa-institute.org)
It is probable that Edward III took advantage of the situation with Richard close to death to add to his own wealth. According to Dickson Preston, Richard signed a deathbed will though his “cheeks were sunken, his breathing torturous, his sight and hearing almost gone.” This will invalidated his previous will.
Why did Richard feel the need to amass such a fortune? Was his passion satisfied? What was his real plan for the property, goods, and money that he left behind? Was his fortune his legacy? So how did the richest man on the continent become just a footnote in history, largely forgotten?