The historic connection between Vernon Benjamin and the Benjamin family to Saugerties was memorialized with the dedication of a bench at Cantine Field last week.
With family traveling from far and wide to join in the celebration, the Benjamins were honored with the dedication of the grey and black Hoosier bench during a ceremony held on Friday, October 20.
The honorees stretch back over a century to Vernon “Joe” Benjamin and Alice Voerg Benjamin, two Saugerties natives who married on January 19, 1935, and who later owned The Flower Garden. The Benjamins had five children, and by late 1960 had moved to 10 Finger Street in the Village of Saugerties. Vernon “Joe” Benjamin was mayor and was a longtime supporter of youth sports and organizer of the Lions Club Baseball League, a precursor to the establishment of the Little League. During his time as mayor, Benjamin was honored with the dedication of a concession booth at a Cantine baseball field on May 18, 1974. When the building housing the booth was expanded to include a second story a decade later, the dedication sign was not reinstalled.
The dedication of the bench last week brings the Benjamin name back into the Saugerties spotlight after many in the family have moved on. In attendance at the ceremony were many Benjamins, including Stacey and Rachel, daughters of the late Vernon Benjamin, Jr., a renowned regional historian and author who passed away last year; and Jason, son of the late Richard “Dickie” Benjamin, who spoke to Hudson Valley One as he made his journey back to Saugerties from Haddonfield, New Jersey.
“Personally, it’s really meaningful because I obviously grew up in Saugerties,” Jason said. “I spent an overabundance of time at the park, specifically playing baseball, basketball on the playgrounds, summer rec program. I have a lot of really positive memories from growing up in Saugerties, but specifically the time I spent at that park.”
Jason Benjamin is a project manager in the Philadelphia offices of pharmaceutical company Merck, but like many in the Benjamin family, his roots run deep in Saugerties, particularly through Cantine Field.
“I can picture (the concession stand) it in my mind,” Jason said. “I was a patron. I probably spent today’s equivalent of about $10,000 at that concession stand, and it was cool because my name was on it.”
For many who grew up in Saugerties, the Benjamin name is almost ubiquitous in their memories, and not just in recreational sports.
“When I think about things that my family has done, my grandparents and also my dad and his two brothers, the commitment that they made to making Saugerties a better place is pretty huge,” said Jason. “They were involved in different capacities, but in local politics, my grandfather was a mayor of Saugerties for a while, my Uncle Vernon was a county legislator, and I’m sure that he was involved in town politics as well at some point. When I graduated from (Saugerties) High School and I walked across the stage, my uncle handed me my diploma because he was the president of the school board at the time.”
But the Benjamin name will also live on in local sports.
“I was a mediocre athlete when I was a kid, but I was always playing baseball and basketball and my dad and my grandfather were always there, volunteering, coaching, organizing, doing whatever they could do to try to make youth sports a better experience for kids,” said Jason.
The Benjamin family hopes the bench will help the legacy live on for many years to come.
“We just wanted to make sure that the name survives really, and people can reflect and think about all the things that they did to make Saugerties a better place to live,” said Jason.
Jason Benjamin doesn’t get back to Saugerties too often, but his own memories of growing up Benjamin are as vivid as though they just happened yesterday.
“When I was a little kid, whenever I went anywhere around town and I was with my grandfather, we’d go to lunch or go to Lachmann’s (Pastry Shop), it felt like it took forever,” Jason said. “It took two hours to do anything in town because he would stop and talk to every single person, whether he knew them or didn’t know them. And as a kid, it’s just like, come on, you just want to go home and play video games or hang out with your friends. But I think he just kind of had a larger than life sort of vibe to him. And he was just a people person. Everybody liked talking to him. Everybody knew him, even if they didn’t know him, just because of the way that he talked to people and communicated with people. He was just a good person.”
As he made his way up the New York State Thruway toward Exit 20, Jason Benjamin said he had time to reflect about his family and what it would mean to him to be part of the dedication ceremony.
“It just makes me proud really to share the same last name with them,” he said.“And I think that’s probably what I’m going to be feeling when I’m there. And I hope others, people in the community use the bench and maybe some people will even know of the Benjamins and they can just reflect and think back to the things that they all did to make Saugerties a better place.”
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