Lars Olsson Hippias, the grandfather of John Peter Benson, was a cavalryman in the Scanian Hussar Regiment for twenty-four years. He married a farmer’s daughter in Grevie, raised his family on a farm at Elestorp in Västra Karup, and died there of tuberculosis in 1840. His son Bengt was John Peter’s father, and the soldier’s name Hippias stayed in the family for three generations.
Birth
Lars Olsson was born in 1793. His surname means “son of Olof.” The household examination books give his birthday as February 29, which cannot be right as written: 1793 was not a leap year. The book from Hov gives his birthplace as Barkåkra, a parish near Ängelholm at the foot of the Bjäre peninsula, and later records repeat it. No baptism entry has been found for him, in Barkåkra or anywhere else.
A Hussar
Sweden did not have a standing army paid from the treasury. Under the allotment system (indelningsverket), the farms of each district were grouped together, and each group had to provide and keep a soldier. For the cavalry, the farms had to supply the horse as well as the man. Each new soldier was given a soldier’s name, which made it easier to tell the many Larssons and Olssons apart. The name usually went with the soldier’s place in the company, and the next man in that place might be given it too.
Lars’s soldier’s name was Hippias. It comes from the Greek hippos, “horse,” a fitting name for a cavalryman. He served in the Scanian Hussar Regiment (Skånska husarregementet), in the squadron raised in Bjäre district (Bjäre härads skvadron), as number 7. Eight farmers shared the cost of keeping him and his horse. The clerks spelled the name many ways: Hippias, Hypias, Hyppias.
Lars joined around 1808, when he was about fifteen. The regiment served in Sweden’s war against Napoleon in Germany in 1813 and 1814. Whether Lars rode with it is not known; the regiment’s muster rolls for those years would show it.
Troentorp
The first record found for Lars is in the household examination book for Hov parish, for 1811–1816. He was living at Troentorp, a farm at the northern edge of Hov, as an unmarried hussar. He had arrived in October 1815.
The book records that Lars received his moving certificate (flyttningsbetyg) for the neighboring parish of Grevie in October 1816. Every Swede who moved needed one. The minister wrote it to show that the person was leaving lawfully, owed nothing to the parish, could read his catechism and had a good character. Lars had in fact married in Grevie six months earlier, on April 27, 1816; the certificate only made the move official.
Marriage
On April 27, 1816, the Grevie register records the marriage of “the hussar Lars Hypias from Troentorp, Hov parish, and the maid Karna Staffansdotter in Killebäckstorp.” Karna was born on September 14, 1792, at Killebäckstorp, the daughter of Staffan Larsson. Her mother, Kiersti Larsdotter, had died on January 30, 1815, of a long illness. Her father remarried that same spring: on April 20, 1816, just one week before Karna’s wedding, Staffan Larsson married Kjersti Pehrsdotter in Grevie. The couple went to live with Karna’s father at Killebäckstorp.
Their first child, Pernilla, was born on January 14, 1817. She appears only once, in the household examination book for 1815–1820, and probably died young. A son, Bengt Petter, was born in 1818 and died as a baby. Christina was born on March 12, 1819, at Killebäckstorp. Another son was born on July 27, 1821, and he too was named Bengt Petter. Giving a new baby the name of a child who had died was common. This second Bengt Petter was John Peter Benson’s father.
The Grevie household book for 1822–1827 shows the family at Killebäckstorp: Staffan Larsson, born in 1759; his second wife, Kiersti, born in 1774; Lars and Karna; and the children Bengt Petter and Christina. On October 14, 1823, Lars and his family moved to Västra Karup.
Elestorp
The family settled at Elestorp, a farm in Västra Karup, just south of Troentorp, where Lars had lived as a young man. Their last child, Nils Petter, was born there in 1824. He died at twelve of tvinsot, a wasting illness in which the sick person lost weight and strength, probably tuberculosis.
In 1832 Lars asked to be discharged from the regiment because of ill health, which had been certified. The muster roll notes that the farmers who kept him were to confirm the grounds for his discharge. He had served for twenty-four years.
Lars died at Elestorp on May 20, 1840, at the age of 47, of lungsot, tuberculosis. He was buried on May 24. The death register calls him åbo at Elestorp. An åbo held the right to farm land owned by the Crown. He did not own the land, but the right was hereditary and could pass to his heirs.
Karna and Bengt
In 1841, the year after her father’s death, Christina left Elestorp for Småryd, where she married Sven Bengtsson and had three children.
Bengt married Kjersti Persdotter in 1843. They lived with Bengt’s mother at Elestorp, where Bengt is often listed as a lodger (inhyses), someone who lived in another person’s house without owning or renting it. Karna now called herself Karna Hippias, and Bengt and his children used the name too. A soldier’s name did not usually pass to his family, but in this family it did. Bengt and Kjersti had five children: Lars Petter, born in 1843; Botilda, called Thilda, born in 1847; Nils Petter, born in 1849; Paulus, born in 1851; and Christina, born on April 3, 1854. In August 1854 Kjersti died of the effects of the birth.
In 1860 Bengt married Ingrid Johansdotter, born November 21, 1832. Their son Jöns Peter, later John Peter Benson, was born at Elestorp on June 10, 1860, the month before the wedding. The household examination book for 1857–1860 lists Ingrid and two other children, Janne Vilhelm and Carolina, who moved to Elestorp from Svenstad in 1860.
Janne Vilhelm and Carolina were born after Kjersti’s death, before Ingrid married Bengt. The household books list them in Bengt’s household, but the note beside them appears to read h:s oä., her (Ingrid’s) illegitimate children, and their baptism entries call them illegitimate, with no father named. Janne Vilhelm used the surname Johansson, from his mother’s father. Carolina used Bengtsdotter, which suggests a father named Bengt. No record found so far names Bengt as their father. Jöns Peter was counted as legitimate, although he was born before the wedding, because his parents were already betrothed; the household book appears to call him begges ä. son, the lawful son of both.
Bengt and Ingrid had four sons together: Jöns Peter in 1860; Carl Ernst Wilhelm, later Charles Ernest Benson, on May 4, 1863; Aron on August 4, 1866, who died in 1869; and a second Aron on May 26, 1869, who later took the name Calin.
Karna Hippias died at Elestorp on July 29, 1862, at 69. No cause of death is given. On November 1, 1870, Bengt and his family left Elestorp for Karup, another village in the parish, and Bengt died there in 1872. Ingrid was left a widow with a houseful of children, among them Jöns Peter, who was about twelve.
Many of the places in Lars’s life are only a few miles apart, on the slopes of the Bjäre peninsula.
When and where was Lars born?
Not yet proven. The household books give February 29, 1793, a date that did not exist, so either the day or the month has been miscopied somewhere along the way. The Hov book gives Barkåkra as his birthplace. The Grevie book for 1822–1827 gives a place that appears to read “Engelsbeck,” perhaps Ängelsbäck, which is south of Killebäckstorp on the map above.
Where was Bengt born?
Grevie. His baptism is in the Grevie register in 1821, and the Grevie household book lists him at Killebäckstorp with his parents until 1823. The Västra Karup household books, written decades later, give V. Karup or Karup, the parish where he grew up. The 1867–1873 book also gives his birthday as July 22, but the baptism register, written at the time, gives July 27.