Alexander Henry Stevens

Alexander Henry Stevens (June 13, 1834 – July 10, 1916)[1] was an American banker.

Alexander Henry Stevens
Born(1834-06-16)June 16, 1834
New York City, New York, U.S.
DiedJuly 10, 1916(1916-07-10) (aged 82)
Lawrence, New York, U.S.
Alma materYale College
OccupationBanker
Spouse(s)
Mary Alleyne Otis
​
​
(m. 1860; his death 1916)​
Parent(s)Byam Kerby Stevens
Frances Gallatin Stevens
RelativesByam K. Stevens (brother)
Albert Gallatin (grandfather)
Ebenezer Stevens (grandfather)
John Austin Stevens (uncle)
Alexander H. Stevens (uncle)

Early life

Stevens was born on June 13, 1834 in New York City.[2] He was the son of banker Byam Kerby Stevens (1792–1870) and Frances (née Gallatin) Stevens (1803–1877).[3] His father inherited Stevens House, the historic home of his grandfather, Maj. Gen. Ebenezer Stevens.[4] Among his siblings was Albert Gallatin Stevens, Frances Mary Stevens (wife of Rev. Uriah Tracy), Byam K. Stevens Jr.[2] (who married Elizabeth Langdon Wilks, sister of Matthew Astor Wilks)[5]

His maternal grandfather was Albert Gallatin, the 4th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury who served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom and France.[6] His paternal grandparents were Major General Ebenezer Stevens and Lucretia (née Ledyard) Sands Stevens.[7] From his grandmother's first marriage to Richardson Sands (younger brother of Joshua and Comfort Sands), she was the grandmother of fellow banker Samuel Stevens Sands.[8] Among his many prominent relatives was uncle Alexander Hodgdon Stevens, a surgeon,[9] and his first cousins, Lucretia Stevens (née Rhinelander) Jones, the mother of author Edith Wharton.[7]

He was educated at Huddard's School in New York City, entering Yale College in 1850 where he graduated four years later in 1854.[10]

Career

Beginning in January 1855 he served as a cashier's clerk in the Bank of Commerce in New York City, under his uncle, John Austin Stevens, the president of the Bank. After two months of travelling in Cuba, he became a clerk in his brother's store in New York City in May 1856. In early 1857, his elder brother Albert took him into partnership under Stevens, Angelo & Company, and they ran a sugar commission business with Cuba until 1868.[11]

In July of the 1868, he became cashier of the Gallatin National Bank of New York (which was founded by John Jacob Astor and which his grandfather had been the first president). He served as cashier until April 1880 when he became vice-president of the Bank.[10]

In 1890, he was elected president of the Sixth National Bank. When the Sixth National Bank consolidated with the Astor National Bank in 1899, he became vice-president. He served alongside Thomas Cochran as vice-president of the Astor National Bank (later the Astor Trust Company)[12][13] until his death in 1916.[10]

Stevens also served as president of the Samuel Stevens Realty Company (which had been in the family since its creation by his uncle Samuel Stevens) and was a director of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad.[10] He was a member of the Sons of the Revolution, founded by his cousin John Austin Stevens.[14]

Personal life

On December 4, 1860, Stevens was married to Mary Alleyne Otis (1833–1918) in Hartford, Connecticut. Mary was the daughter of William Foster Otis and Emily (née Marshall) Otis, and the granddaughter of U.S. Senator Harrison Gray Otis.[15] Mary's sister, Emily Marshall Otis, was married to historian and educator Samuel Eliot.[16] Together, Mary and Alexander were the parents of eight children, including:[7]

  • Mary Otis Stevens (1862–1950)
  • Frances Gallatin Stevens (1863–1910), who married Capt. Harington Swann of the British Army,[17] a son of John Bellington Swann, in 1893.
  • Emily Louise Stevens (b. 1864), who married Frankfurt-born banker Adolph Ladenburg, co-founder of Ladenburg Thalmann and son of Emil Ladenburg, in 1884.[10]
  • William Alexander Stevens (1867–1869), who died in infancy.
  • Elizabeth Grey Stevens (1869–1893), who died unmarried in Rabodanges, France.[7]
  • Eben Stevens (1871–1926), an 1892 Yale graduate who married Evelena Babcock Dixon (1873–1935), daughter of William Palmer Dixon.[7]
  • Alexander Eliot Stevens (1873–1883), who died in childhood.[7]
  • Francis Kerby Stevens (1877–1945), an 1897 Yale graduate who married Elizabeth Shaw Oliver (1873–1951). He was involved in New York real estate industry and a dairy farm in Gladstone, New Jersey.[7]

On July 10, 1916, Stevens died of heart failure at his home in Lawrence on Long Island, where he had lived since 1874. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.[1]

References
  1. "ALEXANDER H. STEVENS DIES; Vice President of the Astor Trust Company Was in His 83d Year" (PDF). The New York Times. 11 July 1916. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
  2. "Byam Kerby Stevens" (PDF). The New York Times. December 13, 1911. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  3. "Mrs. Francis Gallatin Stevens". Pittsburgh Daily Post. December 3, 1877. p. 2. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  4. "THE OLD STEVENS HOUSE. | A Historian's Account of the Historical Mansion at Astoria". The Sun. January 26, 1903. p. 6. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  5. "MRS. BYAM KERBY STEVENS; New York Widow Dies at Her Lenox Villa in 88th Year" (PDF). The New York Times. June 1, 1930. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  6. May, Gregory (2018). Jefferson's Treasure: How Albert Gallatin Saved the New Nation from Debt. Simon and Schuster. p. 630. ISBN 9781621577645. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  7. Stevens, Eugene Rolaz; Bacon, William Plumb (1914). Erasmus Stevens and his descendants. Tobias A. Wright. pp. 16, 60–62. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  8. "Samuel Stevens Sands" (PDF). New York Times. July 26, 1892. Retrieved 2009-07-23. Samuel Stevens Sands, who died on Sunday at his country place, Elmhurst, New-Hamburg, N. Y., was only one or two places from the head of the list of Stock Exchange members in point of length of connection with that institution. He joined it in 1854. For many years he was head of the firm of S.S. Sands Co., acting as a broker for many important financial interests, including the Astors'.
  9. Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John; Dick, Charles; Homans, James Edward; Fay, John William; Linen, Herbert M.; Dearborn, L. E. (1915). The Cyclopædia of American Biography. Press Association Compilers, Incorporated. p. 26. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  10. OBITUARY: RECORD OF YALE GRADUATES: 1918-1919 (PDF). New Haven, CT: Yale University. August 1919. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
  11. Derby, George; White, James Terry (1944). The National Cyclopædia of American Biography: Being the History of the United States as Illustrated in the Lives of the Founders, Builders, and Defenders of the Republic, and of the Men and Women who are Doing the Work and Moulding the Thought of the Present Time. J. T. White & Co. p. 133. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
  12. "ASTOR NATIONAL ABSORBS TRUST CO Merger with New Netherlands to Have a Cash Capital of $1,250,000. HAS POWERFUL BACKING New Concern to be the Astor Trust Company — Will Have Fifth Avenue Offices" (PDF). The New York Times. February 18, 1907. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
  13. The Yale Alumni Weekly. Yale Alumni Weekly. 1912. p. 897. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
  14. York, Sons of the Revolution in the State of New; Society, Sons of the Revolution New York (1893). Year Book of the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York. The Sons. p. 378. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
  15. Morison, Samuel Eliot (1913). The Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis, Federalist, 1765-1848. Houghton Mifflin Company. p. 238. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
  16. Testimonials to Dr. Samuel Eliot : who died at Beverly Farms, Mass., on Wednesday, September 14, 1898. Boston, MA. 1898. Retrieved 16 November 2016.
  17. "Harington Swann. Regiment: 8th Foot. Date of Service: 1882. Born: 1861". discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. The National Archives, Kew. 1882. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
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