R. Benson DuVall, a former member of the Rock Hall Town Council and retired lumberyard manager, died of a heart attack Jan. 18 at Chester River Hospital Center in Chestertown. He was 86.
He was born and raised in Anne Arundel County's Elvaton and graduated from Glen Burnie High School. He earned a certificate in architectural design from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1941, and served as an Army technician from 1944 to 1946.
After the war, he became a carpenter with Thomas Hicks & Sons in commercial construction and then took a job as a loftsman at Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock Co.
In the late 1940s, he moved to Rock Hall and worked as a salesman, estimator and designer for Nuttle Lumber Co. He was general manager of Chestertown Lumber Co. for 20 years before retiring in 1985.
Mr. DuVall was a member of the Kent County Board of Education from 1963 to 1980, and he served for a decade as its president. He was a founding member of the board of trustees of Chesapeake College in Wye Mills, and was a member for five years of the Kent County Parks and Recreation Advisory Board.
A Democrat, Mr. DuVall served from 1986 to 1996 as a member of the town council. He also had been a member of the town's planning commission and zoning appeals board.
He was a member and past master of the Masons' Chester Lodge in Chestertown and enjoyed fishing and building boats.
Services were Monday.
Surviving are his wife of 59 years, the former Patricia Sauter, a son, David B. DuVall of Annapolis; a daughter, Lynn E. Palmer of Thailand; a brother, William Douglas DuVall of Pasadena; two grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. His wife of 15 years, the former Frances Benton, was killed in a 1957 automobile accident.
An obituary for R. Benson DuVall in yesterday's editions misstated the length of his marriage to the former Patricia Sauter. They were married in 1958.The Sun regrets the error.