236 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



erection of new buildings, the creation of new offices and the selection 

 of competent officers to fill the new positions and a hundred other 

 matters all arising out of the new order of things, had all to be settled 

 satisfactorily under the guidance of Mr. Stevenson. He always had 

 been a reformer and an ardent admirer of George Brown. In 1860 

 when arrangements were being made to get Mr. Brown to address a 

 meeting in Napanee, the correspondence was carried on with Mr. 

 Stevenson. Mr. Brown imposed only one condition, and that was, 

 that he be not asked to speak in the open air. 



In the election of 1863 he was placed in an awkward position. He 

 was strongly urged to support Augustus Hooper instead of R. J. Cart- 

 wright (afterwards Sir Richard) but the local issue of a county town 

 over-shadowed all other considerations and he cast in his lot with the 

 latter. Sir Henry Smith made a strong personal appeal to him in 

 which he belittled John A. Macdonald's government and Cartwright's 

 qualifications and concluded his letter with the following: — 



"I consider that we shall soon have a dangerous crisis in Canada 

 unless moderate men of all parties unite for the general good. The 

 fact is, the ncmes of Reformer and Conservative are obsolete and the 

 real name should be 'Moderate' men of all parties." It was this 

 anxious feeling on the part of all public men of Upper Canada that 

 rendered a coalition government possible. 



While the new county had been busy in putting its house in order 

 the greater question of confederation had been threshed out upon 

 every hustings from the Great Lakes to the seaboard. As warden of 

 the county Mr. Stevenson was naturally a man of considerable im- 

 portance in his own county; but he was also recognized as a man who 

 was bound to attain to greater honors. In the parliamentary election 

 of 1863 his advice had been sought by, and he had kept in close touch 

 with, the leaders of the reform party. When the proclamations were 

 issued for the elections to the Legislative Assembly of the new Prov- 

 ince of Ontario, Mr. Stevenson was easily the man of the hour in 

 Lennox. Had he not brought about a separation of the counties ? 

 Had he not brought order out of chaos and established the county of 

 Lennox and Addington upon a good business footing ? This feeling 

 was naturally much more pronounced in Lennox than in Addington, 

 for, while the fight over the county town was not strictly a family 

 quarrel between Lennox and Addington, the great majority in Lennox 

 favored Napanee as the county town and Mr. Stevenson as the hero of 

 the long fought battle, which resulted in awarding the prize to Napanee. 

 The successful manner in which he carried on his numerous business 

 enterprises had also won for him the reputation of being a shrewd 

 business man. 



