Egbert Benson

Egbert Benson (June 21, 1746 – August 24, 1833) was an American lawyer, jurist, politician, and Founding Father who represented New York State in the Continental Congress, the Annapolis Convention, and the United States House of Representatives. He served as a member of the New York constitutional convention in 1788 that ratified the United States Constitution. Over the course of his long public career, he also served as the first attorney general of New York, chief justice of the New York Supreme Court, and as the chief United States circuit judge of the United States Circuit Court for the Second Circuit. As a member of the Federalist Party representing New York, he contributed to the legislative process during three terms in Congress, participating in the early development of the federal government and representing the interests of his constituents during a formative period in American history.

Benson was born in New York City in the Province of New York, the son of Robert Benson (1715–1762) and Catherine (Van Borsum) Benson (1718–1794). His ancestor Dirck Benson, who settled in New Amsterdam in 1649, founded the Benson family in America, and the family became one of the earliest Dutch families to settle in Manhattan. During the early part of his life he lived with his maternal grandmother, a widow who resided on Broad Street at the corner of Beaver Street. He was taught in Dutch and learned his catechism in that language, reflecting the persistence of Dutch culture in colonial New York. In later years he lived at the corner of Puntine and Fulton streets in the home of William Puntine, a residence that became one of the centers of cultural life in New York City. Egbert’s oldest brother, Robert Benson (1739–1823), served as clerk of the New York State Senate and was the father of Egbert’s namesake, Egbert Benson. Other close relatives included his brothers Lieutenant Colonel Robert Benson and Captain Henry Benson, who commanded an armed vessel in the Revolutionary War, and a kinsman, Benjamin Benson, a Revolutionary soldier and member of the committee of correspondence who signed one of the Articles of Association, or “Association Test,” at Haverstraw, New York, in May 1775.

Privately educated in his youth, Benson attended the Collegiate School, then a noted institution in New York, where he prepared for college under the guidance of the Reverend Dr. Henry Barclay, rector of Trinity Church. He went on to King’s College (now Columbia University), from which he graduated in 1765. After reading law, he was admitted to the bar and established a practice in Red Hook in Dutchess County, New York, while also maintaining a practice in New York City. His legal ability and public reputation grew rapidly, and he was later honored with degrees by Harvard University and Dartmouth College. Despite his rising professional prospects, he became increasingly involved in the political disputes of the pre-Revolutionary period, aligning himself with the patriot cause.

As tensions with Britain escalated, Benson approved the course of the Sons of Liberty and, in a measure, sacrificed his promising legal career to devote himself to the American cause. In Dutchess County he aided the Sons of Liberty and helped direct political meetings in support of resistance to British policy. When the British occupied New York City in 1776, he remained in Dutchess County for several years. The county made him president of its committee of safety, and in 1777 he was sent to the revolutionary New York State Assembly. From 1777 to 1781 he served as a member of the Assembly, where he is credited with drafting every important bill passed during the Revolutionary period. When the first state government was organized, he was appointed the first attorney general of New York, serving from 1777 until 1788, and he was again elected to the Assembly in 1788. During these years he also owned slaves; the 1790 federal census recorded him as holding one enslaved person and the 1800 census two enslaved persons. Despite his personal slaveholding, he was involved in the anti-slavery New York Manumission Society, reflecting the complex and often contradictory attitudes toward slavery among New York Federalists of his generation.

New York first sent Benson as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1784. Although reappointed in 1785, he did not attend that year’s sessions. In 1786 the state legislature named him, together with Alexander Hamilton, as a delegate to the Annapolis Convention, which issued the call for the United States Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia the following year. He returned to the Continental Congress in 1787 and 1788, and in 1788 he sat in the New York state convention that ratified the United States Constitution. When the new federal government was established, Benson was elected as a Federalist from New York’s 3rd congressional district to the First and Second United States Congresses, serving from March 4, 1789, to March 3, 1793. During these first two Congresses he participated in organizing the new national government under the Constitution and helped shape early federal legislation. In 1794 he was appointed a justice of the New York Supreme Court, a position he held until 1801, and in 1798 he served on a three-man commission that determined the location of the St. Croix River, a key boundary between the United States and British North America under the terms of the Jay Treaty.

On February 18, 1801, President John Adams nominated Benson to the newly created position of chief judge of the United States Circuit Court for the Second Circuit, established by the Judiciary Act of 1801 (2 Stat. 89). He was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 20, 1801, and received his commission the same day. His federal judicial service ended on July 1, 1802, when the court was abolished by the Jeffersonian majority in Congress through the repeal of the 1801 act. Benson then returned to private law practice in New York City. In 1804 he joined other civic leaders in founding the New-York Historical Society and served as its first president from 1804 to 1816, helping to establish one of the nation’s earliest historical institutions and promoting the collection and preservation of documents related to New York and American history.

Benson returned to national politics during the War of 1812 era. In 1812 he was elected as a Federalist from New York’s 2nd congressional district to the Thirteenth United States Congress. His third term in the House of Representatives was brief; he served only about five months before resigning on August 2, 1813. In December 1813 he was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society, further reflecting his growing engagement with historical and antiquarian pursuits. In addition to his legal and political work, he became known as an author. His writings included Vindication of the Captors of Major Andre, which defended the three American patriots whose capture of British Major John André exposed Benedict Arnold’s plot to surrender West Point; A Biographical Sketch of Gouverneur Morris, published in November 1816; and Brief Remarks on the “Wife” of Washington Irving, published in 1819. He also contributed a series of articles to the New York American condemning what he regarded as the “absurd and anti-Christian” practice of calling the first day of the week the Sabbath.

Benson married late in life. On May 17, 1820, he wed Maria Conover (1796–1867). He spent his later years largely in retirement from public office, though he remained connected to intellectual and historical circles in New York. He died on August 24, 1833, in Jamaica, Queens, and was buried in Prospect Cemetery there; his grave has been marked by a state historical marker. According to manuscripts and notes in the Arthur D. Benson manuscript collection at the Queens Library, his name was engraved on a bronze tablet on the Butterick Building at Sixth Avenue and Spring Street in New York City, placed there by the Greenwich Village Historical Society. His great-grandnephew, Hevelyn D. Benson, a member of the New-York Historical Society founded by his ancestor, sent Jerome D. Greene, director of Harvard’s Tercentenary, seven photostats concerning Egbert Benson, including a 1935 article in The Brooklyn Eagle that described him as “the man behind the Constitution.” Hevelyn Benson also applied to New York State Senator Thomas C. Desmond, a trustee of the New York State Historical Society, for the state historical marker at Egbert Benson’s grave, further cementing his ancestor’s place in the historical memory of New York and the early United States.