Early Life and Education
Stevens was born in St. Albans, Vermont to a family with deep ties to the state. His great-grandfather Stephen Fairchild had fought with the Vermont Milita during the American Revolutionary War. His father, also Hiram Fairchild Stevens, was a well-regarded doctor who had served as a state legislator and president of the Vermont State Medical Society. When the elder Stevens died prematurely from an illness contracted during his service with the Union Army in the U.S. Civil War, the family's loss of income forced the son to work to support his mother and three siblings. Despite the hardship, Stevens eventually graduated from the University of Vermont in 1872, and then Columbia Law School in 1874. During that time he also read law with former Judge John K. Porter of the New York Court of Appeals in the offices of Porter, Lowrey, Soren and Stone.
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