Arthur W. Benson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arthur W. Benson (died 1889) was a president of Brooklyn Gas Light who developed Bensonhurst and Montauk, New York.

Brooklyn Gas Light, founded in 1823, when Brooklyn had 9,000 people.

In 1835 Benson began buying farmland that formerly owned to the Polhemuses family. Between 1830 and 1850 Benson divided the farmland into lots that were sold in the newly created suburb of Bensonhurst^[1].

In 1869, Benson was one of only nine individual investors in the Brooklyn Bridge with the first planning meetings being held at the Brooklyn Gas Light headquarters^[2]

In 1879 Benson paid US$151,000 for 10,000 acres (40 km²) around Montauk, New York in an auction for government land around Montauk (with Benson only fronting 10% down). Smack in the middle of the land was Indian Field which was the home for the Montaukett tribe. The land had been held in trust for the tribe. Benson moved to get clear title to the land with promises of buying it from tribesmen for $10 each and one case one of the tribesmen houses was burned. The legitimacy of the transaction is still being contested in court by the tribe.

The transaction cleared the way for Austin Corbin to bring the Long Island Rail Road to Montauk with the first train pulling in December 17, 1895^[3]

Benson envisioned the area as a playground for the rich. Stanford White and his McKim, Mead, and White designed seven houses at the Ditch Plains area of Montauk. Frederick Law Olmsted and his sons designed a private park system. One of the houses Tick Hall is owned by television personality Dick Cavett and was destroyed by a 1997 fire. Its reconstruction was followed in a Public Television documentary.