Adrian Benjamin Bentzon (22 April 1777 – 15 January 1827) was Governor of the Danish West Indies from 1816 to 1820.

Biography

He was born in

Tønsberg Tønsberg , historically Tunsberg, is a city and municipality in Vestfold og Telemark county, eastern Norway, located around south-southwest of Oslo on the western coast of the Oslofjord near its mouth onto the Skagerrak. The administrative c ...

, Norway. He was the son of Hans Jacob Bentzon (1739–1810) and Sophia Hedvig Købke (1755–1810). He graduated from Bergen Cathedral School in 1793 and took his legal exams in 1798 at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public research university in Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia after Uppsala Unive ...

. He was later adjunct and notary of the legal faculty. In 1814 he became part of the government of the

Danish West Indies The Danish West Indies ( da, Dansk Vestindien) or Danish Antilles or Danish Virgin Islands were a Danish colony in the Caribbean, consisting of the islands of Saint Thomas with ; Saint John ( da, St. Jan) with ; and Saint Croix with . The ...

. In 1816 he was Governor at the level of

Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of ...

. He was named as Commander of the Order of the Dannebrog in 1817. In 1820 he became embroiled in scandal, and resigned as governor, but in 1825 he was acquitted by the

Supreme Court of Denmark The Supreme Court (, lit. ''Highest Court'', , ) is the supreme court and the third and final instance in all civil and criminal cases in the Kingdom of Denmark. It is based at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen which also houses the Danish Pa ...

. Carl Frederik Bricka.
Adrian Benjamin Bentzon
Dansk biografisk Lexikon

Personal life

In 1807, Bentzon was married to Magdalena Astor (1788–1832), daughter of

John Jacob Astor John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor; July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) was a German-American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor who made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by History of opium in China, smuggl ...

. The marriage was not happy, their two children died, and she lived for several years with her parents in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. In 1819, Bentzon was granted divorce. She subsequently married Rev. John Bristed (1778–1855). Bentzon died during 1827 at Christiansted,

St. Croix Saint Croix; nl, Sint-Kruis; french: link=no, Sainte-Croix; Danish and no, Sankt Croix, Taino: ''Ay Ay'' ( ) is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincor ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bentzon, Adrian Benjamin Governors of the Danish West Indies Norwegian military leaders 1777 births 1827 deaths People from Tønsberg University of Copenhagen alumni Commanders of the Order of the Dannebrog 19th century in the Danish West Indies 19th-century Danish politicians