Benjamin Howard Bondurant (3 January 1898-2 November 1968) was an American Prohibition-era gangster and one of the three Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Virginia.
Biography[]
Benjamin Howard Bondurant was born in Franklin County, Virginia on 3 January 1898, the son of Granville Thomas Bondurant and Malissa Elizabeth Barbour, and the older brother of James Forrest and Andrew Jackson Bondurant. He served in the US Army during World War I, and he acquired a reputation as a survivor after he was the only man of his battalion not to drown during a disaster. During Prohibition, he and his brothers operated an illegal moonshining operation from their restaurant and gas station, and, in 1931, they were forced to deal with two troublesome newcomers: US Marshal Charley Rakes and Commonwealth's Attorney Mason Wardell. They allied with the Chicago bootlegger Floyd Banner and succeeded in gunning down Rakes, breaking the Bureau of Prohibition's lockdown of Rocky Mount, and reviving the moonshining industry. Howard and Jack both executed Rakes after a shootout between the Prohis and the local bootleggers, and, following the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, they returned to their legitimate professions. Howard married Thelma Dent, a Martinsville resident, and they had two children: Lucille Bondurant and Howard Dillon Bondurant. He found work at the textile mills in Martinsville, where he died in 1968 at the age of 70.