Frederick William Stevens

NJGenWeb ~ Morris County, New Jersey

Source: History Morris County New Jersey, Volume II, Lewis Publishing Co., 1914

The career of Vice Chancellor STEVENS, marked as it has been by public service of the highest type, and by an undeviating devotion to duty, places him among the foremost men of the State in his generation. As a lawyer he is respected for his thorough knowledge of legal principles and for his unfailing and sound common sense. As a judge the fairness, clearness and acuteness of his mind, with the high qualifications he has shown in that capacity, have won him universal admiration and respect, and given him a prominent position among the important men of the State.

Vice Chancellor Frederick William STEVENS is the oldest son of James Alexander STEVENS, an engineer, who was many the years the superintendent of the Hoboken Ferry Company. His great-grandfather, John STEVENS, was FULTON’s rival in the beginning of steam navigation. His mother, Julia (BEASLEY) STEVENS, was a daughter of the Rev. Dr. Frederic BEASLEY, for some years Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. Vice Chancellor STEVENS was born June 9, 1846, at Hoboken, New Jersey.

He entered Columbia College, now Columbia University, in 1860, and graduated in 1864. The university has since conferred upon him the degree of LL. D. He read law in the office of the late Judge Edward T. GREEN and was admitted to the bar of the State of New Jersey as attorney in the November term of 1868, and as counsellor in the same term of 1871. He was later made an Advisory Master in Chancery and a Supreme Court Commissioner.

For a number of years, Mr. STEVENS practiced his profession in Newark, coming first into public life in 1873, when upon the organization of the District Courts of that city he was made Judge of the Second District, a position which he held for two years, giving great satisfaction. In 1889 he was counsel for the Essex County Board of Freeholders, an office that he held for about two years. His professional record has been one of the most unusual success, and he has taken a conspicuous part in some of the most important legal fights ever made. One of these was the contest regarding the settlement of back taxes of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad Company. In this case he and Judge DILLON acted as arbitrators. He was a member of the standing committee of the diocese of Newark of the Protestant Episcopal church for many years. In 1896 he was appointed Vice Chancellor by Chancellor McGILL for a term of seven years, succeeding in this position John T. BIRD. In 1903 he was appointed for a second term, and again for a third term in 1910. This term will expire in 1917. His political convictions are Democrat. He belongs to the Essex and the Lawyer’s Clubs, and is a member of the Church of the Redeemer, Morristown. He makes Morristown his residence.

He has been married twice. His first wife, whom he married in 1880, was Mary Worth, daughter of Joseph OLDEN, of Princeton. She was born in 1856, died October 31, 1897. She left two children: Katherine, born August 15, 1883; Neil Campbell, born October 22, 1887. On September 9, 1904, he married (second) Edith deGUELDRY, of Morristown. Of this Marriage there are two children: Barbara Twining, born January 11, 1906; Alice deGueldry, born May 21, 1908.

Transcribed by John Cresseveur (1949-2003)