Benson was born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, England, circa 1871; he immigrated to the United States as a young man. His career started at Lexington Park in Lexington, Massachusetts, in the early 1900s. Although he was not the owner, he ran the amusement park, which was filled with all sorts of exotic animals, a theater, a women's resting building and other facilities. The women's resting house remains and is now a home. At the time trolleys took Bostonians from Massachusetts Avenue to Bedford Street and dropped them off at the park's entrance, located on the Lexington and Bedford town line. The park finally closed in 1921.