Benajah Doty was born in Piscataway, New Jersey in about 1723. A resident of Onslow County, North Carolina by 1759, he served as a local justice of the peace. Doty was a signer of the Halifax Resolves in 1776 and also represented Onslow in the North Carolina State Assembly in 1778. Doty was a major in the Onslow County Regiment of the North Carolina Militia during the American Revolution. He died in Onslow in about October 1780.