Background
John was born on August 26, 1822 in New York City, New York, United States. His father, John Stewart, was a native of the island of Lewis, in the Hebrides; his mother, Mary (Aikman) Stewart, Edwin Stewart was a younger brother.
John was born on August 26, 1822 in New York City, New York, United States. His father, John Stewart, was a native of the island of Lewis, in the Hebrides; his mother, Mary (Aikman) Stewart, Edwin Stewart was a younger brother.
John attended the common schools and completed what was then called the "literary and scientific course" at Columbia College in 1840.
After studies Stewart took up civil engineering, being a member of the staff which surveyed the line of the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad in 1840-42. In 1842 he was appointed clerk of the board of education of New York City, and held the post for eight years. From 1850 to 1853 he was actuary of the United States Life Insurance Company, and is credited with having brought some new ideas into the insurance business.
Late in 1852, when he was only thirty years old, he laid before John Jacob Astor, Royal Phelps, Peter Cooper, and other prominent New York business men a plan for a novel banking institution which should serve largely in a fiduciary capacity. They saw merit in it and agreed to become stockholders; thus was born, early in 1853, the United States Trust Company.
He was a trusted financial adviser to President Lincoln, and served as assistant treasurer of the United States under him in 1864-65. He again rendered valuable service to the country in 1894, during Cleveland's administration, when the gold reserve was dangerously depleted.
Stewart was a trustee of Princeton University from 1868 until his death, and, as senior trustee, served as president pro tempore of the University from October 1910, when Woodrow Wilson resigned to become governor of New Jersey, until the spring of 1912, when John Grier Hibben was chosen president.
He gave up his daily attendance at his office in his latter years, but visited it frequently and kept in close touch with the business until shortly before his death in New York City, at the age of 104.
John Aikman Stewart did much for benevolence, education, and religion, was long a trustee of the John F. Slater Fund for the education of the freedmen of the South, and was one of the oldest and most zealous promoters of the American Bible Society. He had a personal acquaintance with all the Presidents of the United States from Lincoln to Coolidge. Stewart served as its secretary until the end of 1864. He was then elected president and held that office for thirty-eight years, retiring in 1902 to become chairman of the board of trustees, in which position he continued until his death.
He was a member of the American Bible Society.
He was slightly deaf, but read without spectacles and retained his mental faculties until the end.
He was twice married: first, in 1847, to Sarah Yule Johnson of New York, who died in 1887; and second, November 25, 1890, to Mary Olivia Capron of Baltimore, Maryland. His second wife, a son by his first marriage, and a daughter survived him.
