Henry Mower RICE may not have lived in Benton County very long, so I am not including any of the several biographies that are available. However, he was in Sauk Rapids at a very early day, where he built a trading post, which was sold to the American Fur Company, in 1849, and managed by Jeremiah RUSSELL.

Henry was an inflential pioneer and statesman in early Minnesota, and served in the US House of Representatives from 1853 to 1857, representing the Territory of Minnesota, and as the first US Senator from the new state of Minnesota, 1858 to 1863. See his Wikipedia page.