From Proud Heritage, Volume I by DCPA, currently out of print.
Benjamin Long, whose family name, Lang, was pronounced Long in Europe, was born March 7, 1838 in Zurich, Switzerland. His father was a school master and his grandfather a minister in the Lutheran Church of Zurich. Ben’s father expected his son to go into the ministry but Ben had heard of the great opportunities of the new world; and in 1855, with the help of his grandfather, he sailed from Antwerp for America with a group of Swiss and Belgian families. After a long trip on stormy waters the group went by foot and ox cart on their journey up from Galveston, with the men and young people walking while the old people and very young children rode in the carts. They arrived in Dallas July 4, 1855, to settle in La Reunion with other fellow countrymen who had come before them.
Shortly after Ben’s arrival in America he was captured by Indians in what was then called “The Indian Territory”. An old Indian man felt sorry for the young boy and, in the middle of the night, woke him up and took him into the woods where two ponies had been staked out. They each got on a pony and before daylight the old Indian had shown Ben the way out of Indian Territory.
Another arrival to the La Reunion Colony was that of Eugenia Dev Les Goodere in 1856. She came from Louvan, Belgium, with the family of her step-father, Jean-Baptiste Goetsells. It was here she met Ben Long. Later, when the colony of professionals failed, most of the group drifted across the Trinity River and settled in east Dallas. Swiss Avenue derives its name from them. It was at this time Ben Americanized the spelling from Lang to Long. He married Eugenia Dev Les Goodere in the Spring of 1862 at the home of Jacob Nussbaumer on Swiss Avenue.
Ben Long became active in his new city and in September, 1868, was appointed mayor of Dallas by Joseph J. Reynolds, the Military Governor of Texas. This was the Reconstruction period after the Civil War and the city of Dallas was occupied by Federal troops.
Mayor Long received word his mother was ill and in April, 1870, took a leave to return to Switzerland. During his visit he recruited additional families who followed him back to the new country he loved. The railroad had not yet come to Dallas so the group had to walk the last seventy miles from Hallsville, which was the terminus of the Houston and Texas Railroad. They arrived in Dallas December 4, 1870. Most of the group could not understand Long’s love for the unattractive frontier town, but his enthusiasm kept their hopes up. The former Swiss and Belgian citizens already here welcomed the new arrivals and opened their homes to them until the new Texans could establish their own homes.
The Dallas fire department was organized in 1871, and Ben Long donated a lot for the first engine house on Commerce Street between Poydras and Lamar. Ben Long ran for Mayor and was returned to office November, 1872, by popular vote. His board of aldermen was the first to be elected, rather than appointed. The city had started to grow rapidly with the arrival of the Houston and Texas Railroad. In a few months the population went from 1500 to 7000. To encourage the Texas & Pacific to come to Dallas, Mayor Long, along with other businessmen, bought two acres of property on Pacific between Lamar and Griffin Streets and donated it to the Texas &: Pacific for their train depot. The first public utilities came to Dallas during this term of office in the form of horse and mule drawn street cars on Main Street and outdoor lighting for the streets. After completing his second term as Mayor, Long was appointed the United States Commissioner for the Northern District of Texas.
The events and accomplishments go on for this popular Dallas citizen. In private life he and his wife Eugenia had a family of five children. His son, Ben, died from a cerebral hemorrhage. His four daughters married and remained to make their homes in Dallas. Many of their descendants live in Dallas today. Daughter Annie married Jerry Houston and, after his death, married Silas Lotzenhiser, a carpenter. He helped put in the oak woodwork in the old Red Court House. Daughter Mary married Price Bowen, who was with the U.S. Mail service. Eugenia married Ferdinand Riek, a musician, and Lucia married Louis F. Rick of the Rick furniture family.
Children of Ben Long. From left: Annie. Ben, Mary, Lucia and Eugenia. Picture taken after Ben’s death, circa 1879.
Ben’s wife Eugenia Long was a strong woman and used that strength to raise her five children alone after her husband’s untimely death June 23, 1877, at the age of 39 years. Long was visiting a fellow native of Switzerland who owned a saloon on Austin Street. Two young men and a woman rose to leave without paying for their beer. The owner stopped them and asked them to pay. Long spoke to one of the men and told him he ought to pay since the owner ran the saloon as the means of livelihood. The young men replied that he would get the money but returned fifteen minutes later with a gun and shot the saloon owner in the arm and Long in the chest. Long was helped home by friends and died a short time later. The next day the murderer was shot in the Trinity River bottoms by a quickly- formed posse and died in the city hospital. Former Mayor Long’s funeral was one of the largest in Dallas up to that time, with forty carriages and fourteen horsemen in the procession. Ben Long did not see his children grow to adulthood and he missed the joy of his grandchildren. But in his short life he had lived fully and contributed a lot to the city of Dallas which he adopted as a young man and loved so much.
by Mae E. Riek
