Background
John Stewardson was born in 1857 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
John Stewardson was born in 1857 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
After graduating at Harvard, he studied four years in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He also traveled extensively in France before returning to America.
In Philadelphia, the young man began his career as draftsman in the architectural office of the late T. P. Chandler, and in 1884 joined his brother and Walter Cope in organizing the firm of Cope & Stewardson. A talented designer and able architect, he was particularly identified with the beautiful group of Dormitory buildings at the University of Pennsylvania, also buildings at Bryn Mawr College and Princeton University. In reality, much of the firm's success in adapting the English Gothic style to American collegiate buildings was due to John Stewardson's personal efforts.
He was one of America's most able architects, and his tragic death at the age of thirty-eight was a cruel loss to the profession.
“He had never married, and his friends were delighted when his engagement to a brilliant and beautiful Southern girl was announced. A few days before the wedding was to take place, John and his friend, Wilson Eyre, went skating on the Schuylkill river. As it began to grow dark, John Steward- son glided away from the crowd. The ice on that part of the river was thin, and he never returned."