Early Life and Family
John White Stevenson was born May 4, 1812, in Richmond, Virginia. He was the only child of Andrew and Mary Page (White) Stevenson. His mother—the granddaughter of Carter Braxton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence—died during childbirth. Stevenson was sent to live with his maternal grandparents, John and Judith White, until he was eleven; by then, his father had remarried. His father, a prominent Virginia lawyer, rose to political prominence during Stevenson's childhood. He was elected to Congress, eventually serving as Speaker of the House and was later appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James's (now called the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom) by President Martin Van Buren. Because of his father's position, he was personally acquainted with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, having been a guest in both their houses.
Stevenson was educated by private tutors in Virginia and Washington, D.C., where he frequently lived while his father was in Congress. In 1828, at the age of fourteen, he matriculated from the Hampden–Sydney Academy (now Hampden–Sydney College). Two years later, he transferred to University of Virginia, where he graduated in 1832. After graduation, he read law with his cousin, Willoughby Newton, who would later serve in the U.S. Congress. In 1839, Stevenson was admitted to the bar in Virginia.
On the advice of Madison, Stevenson decided to settle in the west. He traveled on horseback through the western frontier until he reached the Mississippi River, settling at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Vicksburg was a small settlement at the time and did not provide enough work to satisfy him, and, in 1840, he decided to travel to Covington, Kentucky, settling there permanently in 1841. In Covington, he formed a law partnership with Jefferson Phelps, a respected lawyer in the area; the partnership lasted until Phelps' death in 1843.
A devout Episcopalian, Stevenson frequently attended the conventions of that denomination. He was elected as a vestryman of the Trinity Episcopal Church in Covington on November 24, 1842. In 1843, he married Sibella Wilson of Newport, Kentucky. They had five children: Sally C. (Stevenson) Colston, Mary W. (Stevenson) Colston, Judith W. (Stevenson) Winslow, Samuel W. Stevenson, and John W. Stevenson.
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