226 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Among the illustrious men who claim their origin from the old 

 quaker surveyor, we find two Governors, several judges and a host of 

 eminent army officers. It will not serve our present purpose to trace 

 the history of the family farther back than Arthur Stevenson of Cay- 

 uga county, New York, and we are interested in him only to such 

 extent as his history may throw some light upon the life of one of his 

 grandsons, the Honorable John Stevenson, the first Speaker of the 

 Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario. 



Arthur Stevenson was married, according to the traditions of his 

 family, some time prior to 1785 to Rachael Yard and lived in Hunter- 

 don county New Jersey, until about 1815, when he moved to the 

 State of New York. During the revolutionary war, the people had 

 been harassed and impoverished by the soldiers marching and counter- 

 marching across that section of the country and many families migrated 

 to Canada and western New York; but Arthur Stevenson was not 

 among the number who left for this reason. No doubt he was moved 

 to a certain extent by the injuries sustained by his neighbours and 

 may himself have suffered more or less from the same causes. He 

 probably kept in touch with some who had moved away. It is not 

 surprising, therefore, in after years, when the family had grown up, 

 to find some members following the course of their former neighbours 

 and taking up their homes in northern New York. Arthur's eldest 

 son, Edward, accompanied him to the new home and settled at El- 

 dridge in New York state. Edward had five sons and three daughters. 

 A younger son, Charles, was elected Governor of the State of Nevada 

 in 1889 and another son, Edward, was in the same year elected Gover- 

 nor of the State of Idaho. 



At the time Edward Stevenson accompanied his father to his 

 new home in the State of New York he had two sons, Arthur and John. 

 John, the younger of the two, was but three years of age at that time, 

 having been born on August 12th, 1812. This young son was destined 

 to carve out for himself a place in the history of our province. 



A few years later the father made another move and this time 

 settled in the county of Leeds in the Province of Ontario. In making 

 this journey to their new Canadian home the boy travelled 300 miles 

 on horseback, crossing the boundary line at Cape Vincent. A short 

 course at the public school in Brockville was the best provision his 

 father could make for his education and there he had as one of his 

 schoolmates a bright young lad who afterwards became the Honorable 

 Sir William Buell Richards. 



Young Stevenson was a voracious reader and had a remarkably 

 retentive memory and while he was denied a higher education, in the 

 sense in which we understand the term to-day, yet, by his faithful 



