Liberia’s Forgotten Cradle: Rep. Benson Demands Budget Justice for St. Paul River’s Historic Towns

Rep. Bernard Benson petitions President Boakai as Arthington, Clay-Ashland, Millsburg, Royesville, and Cheesmanburg — birthplace of four Liberian presidents — continue to crumble under decades of budgetary neglect

MONROVIA – Along the winding banks of the St. Paul River, a cluster of settlements older than the Liberian republic’s modern institutions sits in quiet disrepair. Potholed roads swallow vehicles whole. Clinics operate without adequate staff or supplies.

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***By Obediah Johnson ***

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Schoolchildren study in buildings that have not seen a fresh coat of paint, let alone a renovation, in a generation. These are not remote, unknown villages — they are Arthington, Clay-Ashland, Millsburg, Royesville, and Cheesmanburg, five of the most historically significant communities in the entire nation.

Now, Montserrado County District 17 Representative Bernard Benson — popularly known by his moniker “DJ Blue” — has decided he can no longer watch in silence. In an open letter dispatched to President Joseph Nyuma Boakai on Tuesday, September 15, Benson laid bare what he describes as a prolonged and unjust abandonment of these towns, urging the president to correct the imbalance as his administration begins drafting the 2027 national budget.

A Legacy Ignored

For Benson, the neglect is not merely a matter of underfunding — it is a matter of historical injustice. He argues that these five townships occupy an outsized place in Liberia’s social, cultural, and political development, yet have been repeatedly passed over when national resources are distributed. The lawmaker is asking the president to ensure these communities are written into the fiscal year 2027 budget in a way that finally reflects their contribution to the country’s founding story.

The scale of that contribution, Benson points out, is difficult to overstate. This single geopolitical cluster has produced four of Liberia’s twenty-six presidents — a statistic that, in Benson’s telling, makes the region’s current state of disrepair all the more difficult to justify. Beyond politics, he insists these towns still hold untapped promise: strong potential for agro-tourism, and stewardship over some of the country’s most treasured cultural landmarks.

Roads, Clinics, and a System That Isn’t Working

The representative’s letter does not shy away from specifics. He describes a district plagued by deteriorating road networks, limited access to quality education and healthcare, poor sanitation systems, weak local administrative capacity, and a chronic shortfall in community development investment. Residents, he contends, are shouldering hardships that citizens in better-funded parts of the country simply do not face.

Benson also took aim at two funding mechanisms that were supposed to be part of the solution. The District Development Fund (DDF) and the Social Development Fund (SDF). He characterized both as sound ideas undermined in practice — bogged down by bureaucratic delay and political interference to the point that their intended purpose has gone largely unrealized in his district.

According to Benson, District 17 has not received DDF or SDF disbursements since fiscal year 2024, even though budgetary appropriations for those funds were made in both 2025 and 2026.

His appeal to the president is direct: as the 2027 budget is prepared for submission to the Legislature, he is asking that these five rural Montserrado communities finally be given serious and deliberate consideration for direct allocations.

Restoring Dignity, Not Just Infrastructure

Rep. Benson frames the request as being about more than asphalt and clinic supplies. He argues that meaningful investment in these townships would help close long-standing socio-economic gaps, lift living standards, and restore a sense of hope among residents who have watched their communities’ historical stature outpace their present-day treatment. Preserving the “dignity, relevance, and legacy” of these settlements, he suggests, is itself a national interest — not a parochial one.

He closed his appeal on a note of cautious optimism, expressing confidence that greater attention will finally be paid to areas that have gone overlooked for too long, and renewing his plea that the five townships be intentionally folded into the country’s development priorities.

The Towns Behind the Plea

To understand why Benson is fighting so hard for these communities, it helps to understand what they represent.

Arthington, perhaps the best known of the five, sits northeast of Monrovia along the St. Paul River. Its founding dates to 1869, when a group of 79 African-American emigrants from Windsor, North Carolina, led by Alonzo Hoggard, arrived to settle the land. More emigrants followed from South Carolina and Georgia over the next few years. The town takes its name from Robert Arthington, a British philanthropist who financially backed African-American resettlement efforts in Liberia. Arthington grew into a center for coffee, sugarcane, and ginger cultivation, and its architecture still carries the imprint of the American South. It is also the hometown of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, adding another layer to its political significance.

Clay-Ashland, founded around 1846 by African-American emigrants largely from Kentucky under the American Colonization Society, earned the nickname “Kentucky in Africa.” Its name is a tribute to Henry Clay, the American statesman and colonization advocate, merged with the name of his Kentucky estate, Ashland. The town’s political pedigree runs deep: the True Whig Party — which would dominate Liberian politics for more than a hundred years — was founded there in 1869. Clay-Ashland also produced or was home to major historical figures, including former presidents William D. Coleman and Alfred Francis Russell, along with educator and missionary Moses Ricks, founder of the Ricks Institute.

Millsburg, established in 1828 along the northern bank of the St. Paul River, is named in connection with Samuel John Mills and Ebenezer Burgess, agents of the American Colonization Society. It developed into a key agricultural and trading hub, part of a broader St. Paul River corridor — alongside Clay-Ashland and Arthington — that became synonymous with coffee and sugar production in the nineteenth century.

Royesville and Cheesmanburg round out the cluster, both integral parts of the same St. Paul River settlement network that expanded during Liberia’s early agricultural era. Historical maps of nineteenth-century Liberia place these five towns together as a distinct settlement region, their fortunes and identities intertwined from the beginning.

A Test for the 2027 Budget

Whether Benson’s appeal translates into real fiscal commitment remains to be seen. The 2027 budget process is still in its early, formative stages, and competing priorities across Liberia’s counties will inevitably shape what the final document looks like. But Benson’s letter puts a spotlight on a broader tension in Liberian governance: how a nation honors the settlements that built its founding narrative while still failing, year after year, to fund their most basic services.

For the residents of Arthington, Clay-Ashland, Millsburg, Royesville, and Cheesmanburg, the question is not academic. It is etched into the cracked roads they travel, the under-resourced clinics they depend on, and the schools where their children learn the very history their hometowns helped write.