Edwin Augustus Stevens, Jr.

Edwin Augustus Stevens Jr. (March 14, 1858 – March 8, 1918) was an army officer, marine engineer, and naval architect. He was among the founders of Cox & Stevens in 1905, which became an influential and successful New York design firm.

Early life

Stevens was born in Philadelphia in 1858, the son of Martha Bayard Dod (1831–1899) and Edwin Augustus Stevens (1795–1868), a well-known designer and founder of the Stevens Institute of Technology, and nephew of John Cox Stevens, founder of the New York Yacht Club and a driving force in the design of the yacht America and the competition for the America's Cup.

He attended St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire and then entered Princeton University, graduating with an A.B. degree in 1879. He then enrolled at the Stevens Institute of Technology, graduating as an engineer."Col. E.A. Stevens of Hoboken is Dead"
''The New York Times'', March 9, 1918. Accessed August 9, 2008.

Career

His most notable personal achievement was the propeller driven double ended ferry, which is the most typical vehicle ferry in use today. The significance of his design was a shaft which could control propellers at both ends of the craft. Among the advantages was superior braking of the vessels, since paddle wheel propulsion systems could not effectively be reversed to slow the craft. Prior to propeller drives, double ended ferries had less usable width because of side wheel propulsion.

Cox & Stevens began in 1905 as a yacht design and commercial brokerage in New York City. The original principal partners were Daniel H. Cox, Irving Cox, and Edwin Augustus Stevens Jr. The firm continued under various names until the 1970s.

From 1911 to 1917, he was the New Jersey Commissioner of Public Roads of the State Highway Commission, a predecessor to the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

Personal life

On October 28, 1879, he married Emily Contee Lewis (1857–1931) of Virginia. She was the great-granddaughter of Lawrence Lewis (1767-1839), George Washington's nephew, and Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis, Washington's adopted daughter and step-granddaughter. Together, they had eight children:

* John Stevens VI (1881–1932), who died unmarried.
* Edwin Augustus Stevens III (1882–1954), who died unmarried.
* Washington Lewis Stevens (1883–1946), who married Nannie Nye Jackson in 1905.
* Bayard Stevens (1885–1927)
* Martha Bayard Stevens (1886–1888), who died young.
* Basil Martiau Stevens (1888–1957), who married Helen Conro Ward (1891–1943)
* Lawrence Lewis Stevens (1889–1958), who became an actuary and who married Anne D. Malpass (1890–1974).
* Emily Custis Lewis Stevens (1896–1963), who died unmarried.Sorley, Merrow Egerton
''Lewis of Warner Hall''
(1935, reprinted 1979), pp. 217-21.

Stevens died in 1918, six days before his 60th birthday, in Washington, D.C., where he was serving as a shipyard inspector under appointment by President Woodrow Wilson.

References

Further reading

First Family of Inventors
History of the Stevens family


Mystic Seaport Museum


* The Encyclopedia of Yacht Designers, by Lucia Del Sol Knight (Editor), Daniel Bruce MacNaughton (Editor) W. W. Norton & Company 2005
* The Golden Century: Classic Motor Yachts, 1830–1930, by Ross Mactaggart, W. W. Norton & Company 2001

External links

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stevens, Edwin Augustus Jr.
1858 births
1918 deaths
Princeton University alumni
People from Hoboken, New Jersey
American naval architects
America's Cup yacht designers
Members of the New York Yacht Club