Carthage Historic Preservation, Inc.
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 375 | Carthage, MO 64836
Phelps House: 1146 Grand Avenue, Carthage, MO
417.358.1776
BENJAMIN G. SWEET
circa 1868
311 E. 13th Street
The land on which the Sweet House stands was originally part of an 1854 U.S. land grant to William Chenault. In December 1867, William Phelps purchased the property from Nancy Chenault, acquiring all land from 13th Street south to the Phelps House property.
In 1868, Phelps sold a parcel of land on East 13th Street to Benjamin G. Sweet, who then built a home. Just two years later, in 1870, Sweet sold the property to Edmund Webb for $1,200, making a substantial profit over the $375 in loans he had originally secured to build the house.
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Photo credit: Tyla Reardon
Over the years, Sweet worked in construction, owned a grocery store, and operated a bookstore and newsstand. According to family history, he also owned general stores in Kansas and Arkansas and had mining interests in Oklahoma.
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A Civil War veteran, Sweet served as a Union soldier with the 74th Volunteer Illinois Infantry throughout the war, despite suffering from chronic rheumatism.
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In 1866, Benjamin G. Sweet married Inez Hall Sweet. The following year, in 1867, the couple moved to Carthage with their daughter, Minnie Elzora. Their son, Clayton Clark, was born in March 1868.
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After settling in Carthage, he worked alongside his in-laws, E.B. and E.H. Hall, who were carpenters and builders. According to a Carthage Press interview with Sweet’s son, Clayton, “his father erected many of the early-day residences in Carthage.”
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Sweet was also a journal keeper, documenting his wartime experiences, his journey to Carthage, and his business struggles in 1872. Four of these journals were preserved and later gifted to the State Historical Society of Missouri by his granddaughter, Marcella E. Sweet Roper.​​​
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An excerpt from Benjamin Sweet’s journal, Tuesday, September 10, 1867:
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Benjamin G. Sweet circa 1863
Courtesy of the Sweet Family
Sweet store circa 1870-1871
"Pleasant. Started quite early in the morning. After we had got about ten miles, we met a woman – who had been to call her mother who was a hundred years old and had started to walk to her son’s at a distance of 15 miles – who asked us to let an old woman that was ahead of us ride a little way. When we got in sight of the old lady, she was so tired that she could scercly (sic) move. I lifted her into the wagon and carried her to her granddaughters, about 14 or 15 miles from where we found her. We took dinner there–Coon Creek–and arrived in Carthage at four o-clock P.M.”
The coffin door located in the living room on the west side of the Sweet House.