Background
John was born on July 4, 1809 in County Armagh, Ireland, and was the son of James and Grace (Stuart) Stephenson, who were respectively of English and of Scotch descent.
John was born on July 4, 1809 in County Armagh, Ireland, and was the son of James and Grace (Stuart) Stephenson, who were respectively of English and of Scotch descent.
When he was two years old his parents emigrated to the United States, settling in New York City, and there he was educated in the public schools and in Wesleyan Seminary.
At sixteen Stephenson became a clerk in a store but in 1828, having developed a marked mechanical taste and inclination, he apprenticed himself to a coachmaker, Andrew Wade, of Broome Street, New York. During his apprenticeship of two years he devoted all of his evenings to learning mechanical drawing and tried his hand at the designing of vehicles. Upon the completion of his apprenticeship he found employment as repairman for a liveryman, Abram Brower.
A year later, in May 1831, he opened his own shop to engage in the repair of all kinds of vehicles, and in the course of the year designed and built the first omnibus made in New York. Brower purchased this and established the city's first omnibus line, which became so popular that he had Stephenson build three additional busses immediately. In the same year he was employed to build a horse-drawn car for the newly organized New York & Harlem Railroad to use on its Fourth Avenue line.
His car was used when the railroad was opened on November 26, 1832, and thus he gained the honor of designing and building the first car for the first street railway in the world. The "'John Mason, " as it was called in honor of the president of the company, resembled a great omnibus mounted on four flange wheels. So satisfactory was it that in the succeeding three years Stephenson received orders for cars not only for this original line but for newly established street-car lines in several cities in the East. The financial panic of 1837, however, was disastrous to him, and he was compelled to close down his factory.
Nevertheless, in six years he had paid all his creditors and had once more undertaken manufacturing, this time of coaches and omnibuses exclusively. He continued in this profitably until 1852, when the establishment of horse-car lines in many cities of the world brought with it a great demand for cars.
He died in 1893.
Stephenson, who was very fond of music, was an active member of the New York Sacred Music Society and the Harmonic Society of New York.
In 1833 he married Julia A. Tiemann, and at the time of his death in New Rochelle, New York, where he had resided since 1865, he was survived by two sons and a daughter.