Lewis Benson

Lewis Benson (1906–1986) was perhaps the 20th century’s greatest expert on the writings of George Fox. And although this expertise was widely acknowledged, he was also a voice crying in the wilderness, for he sought to herald a gospel greater than he to a body of modern Quakers with little taste for it. His appreciation of his situation is beautifully captured in a 1954 letter to his sister-in-law, which he wrote to decline her invitation to join an intentional community (The Bruderhof ) associated with a non-Quaker sect. He wrote, in part:

Lewis Benson was born in 1906 in his grandmother’s house in Sea Girt, New Jersey. He was a birthright member of Manasquan Meeting, where his parents had been married. He grew up in Weehawken, New Jersey, across the river from New York City. Most of the year, he attended a Scotch Presbyterian Church where his mother taught Sunday school. Each summer, he went to the shore and attended Manasquan Meeting, and First Day School there. He also regularly attended New York Yearly Meeting and the Half Yearly Meeting Manasquan belonged to. At 16, he dropped out of school and became a messenger boy for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Soon after, he came under the influence of George Gurdjieff, a fellow who claimed to have studied in Tibet and have secret knowledge that would allow one to become “an autonomous person” and get others to do what one wanted. Benson made that man’s teaching the center of his inner life, but after seven years in the movement, he became disillusioned. He felt Gurdjieff’s teachings were soulless, and he left abruptly. For several years, his life had little direction or hope. He and his mother moved to Manasquan. Borrowing money from relatives, he opened a Studebaker agency, but it during the Great Depression, the business quickly failed. Broke and faithless, Benson despaired and planned to do away with himself. He got in his car and drove as far west as Arizona, but returned home instead of killing himself.

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