Character and ability will come to the front anywhere. As boy and man, many a man has been buffeted by fortune and had almost insurmountable obstacles thrust in his path, but per-severance has cleared them away and he has gone on to success. Such has been the experience of the subject of this sketch, one of the rising and popular citizens and public men of Bingham County, Idaho, a man with a heart for any venture, and a smile for friend and foe.
Benjamin P. Jenne, deputy sheriff and jailer of Bingham County, Idaho, was born at Poor Man’s Gulch, California, October 22, 1855, and is descended from English and French ancestry.
His grandfather, Benjamin P. Jenne, was born in France, whence he emigrated to the United States and settled in St. Lawrence County, New York. There his son Benjamin P. Jenne, 2d, was born and reared. He went, while yet a young man, to California, and there married Miss Annie Ann Richardson, who died in giving birth to her only child, the subject of this sketch. Benjamin P. Jenne, 2d, died, aged eighty-seven, in 1894.
When he was four years old, Benjamin A. Jenne was taken to Ohio to live with his uncle, Ansel Jenne, and remained there, attending school after he was old enough, until he was twelve. He then went back to St. Lawrence County, New York, where he had a home with relatives, and at fifteen began to earn his own living. For two years he was a sailor on the great lakes between Ogdensburg, New York, and Chicago, Illinois. Then he went into the Michigan lumber country and worked in the woods in the winter months and in a sawmill at Muskegon during the balance of the year. After that he was a farmer in DeKalb County, Illinois, until 1878, when he came to Idaho and found employment as a staged River between Echo and Park City, Utah. After two years of such experience he took up the hotel and restaurant business, in which he has since been continuously successful. His first venture of this kind was at Soda Springs, Idaho, and he was encouraged by its success to go to Idaho Falls. There for a time he kept the Burgess House. Then he built the Grahel House and still later finished and ran the Berry House. As a hotel man he is known widely and favorably.
Politically Mr. Jenne has been a Democrat ever since he began to take an intelligent interest in public affairs. In 1896, at Idaho Falls, he was elected justice of the peace, in which office he served until January 15, 1899, when he was appointed deputy sheriff of Bingham County, by Sheriff Clyne, who has long been his warm personal friend, in recognition of his influence in furthering Mr. Clyne’s election.
In 1880 Mr. Jenne married Miss Kittie E. Sutor, a Pennsylvanian by birth, who was brought very young to Michigan, and there grew to womanhood. They have four children: Ada Blanche. Earl C. Fred and Cora Belle. Mrs. Jenne is conducting a successful millinery business at Idaho Falls. She is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. Mr. Jenne is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and has passed all the chairs in both branches of that order and has also been twice chosen to represent his lodge in the grand lodge of the state.