Yolo County CA Archives Biographies.....Stephens, John Dickson 1826 - 1898
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Author: Tom Gregory

JOHN DICKSON STEPHENS
   From the time of the establishment of the first bank in Yolo county until his
demise almost thirty years later Mr. Stephens sustained a wide reputation as one
of the most able and far-seeing financiers of Woodland. His the keen mental
vision that discerned the need of adequate banking facilities in the then
frontier settlement; his the sincerity of citizenship that gave to the community
an example of unselfish devotion to duty; and his the intelligent insight into
financial problems that laid stanch and deep and strong the foundations of a
banking institution honored among the bankers of the entire state. Nor did he
leave the impress of his fine personality alone upon banking enterprises, for he
also was known and honored as a philanthropist of wise activities, a
stock-raiser of successful experience, a pioneer miner of conservative policies
and a citizen of cultured attainments. His death, which occurred August 27,
1898, was a loss not only to the bank of which he had been the first and only
president, but also was recognized as a distinct loss to dignified, unselfish,
high-minded citizenship.

    A study of the genealogy of the Stephens family indicates a mingling of
Welsh blood with that of the sturdy Scotch race. Long before the Revolutionary
war the family was transplanted upon the shores of America and united with the
loyal followers of Penn in the early development of the timber lands of the
Keystone state, where Peter Stephens was born about 1690 or 1700. Little is
known concerning his life except that he founded the village of Stephens-burg in
Pennsylvania and held a position of influence in that community. The next
generation was represented by Peter, Jr., who married Johanna Chrisman and moved
to Wythe county, Va., thus founding the family in the Old Dominion. In his home
there were reared seven sons and one daughter. A noteworthy indication of the
patriotic spirit of the family is afforded by the statement that all of the
seven sons served in the Revolutionary war. Five lived to see their country free
and independent, but two fell upon battlefields.

    Among the five patriotic brothers who lived to enjoy the fruits of their
sacrifices as soldiers there was one, Joseph, in whom the pioneer instinct of
developing the frontier was especially well developed and who became
successively a pioneer of three great commonwealths. After his marriage in 1790
to Rhoda Cole he continued to live in Virginia for more than a decade, but the
year 1801 found him and his family following the tide of emigration across the
mountains into the blue grass regions of Kentucky, where he built a cabin in
Wayne county, turned the first furrows of virgin soil and endured the dangers
and privations of the frontier. In a search for better conditions he removed to
Tennessee in 1815, but not finding the satisfactory environment that he desired
he made a new move during 1817. In that year he loaded his possessions into
"prairie schooners" and followed the blazed trail to the Mississippi river,
crossed that stream, journeyed forward to the Missouri river and after crossing
it he made a settlement in Cooper county, Mo., upon raw land thirteen miles
south of Boonville. In this memorable journey he had been accompanied by all of
his children excepting Mary, who had married and settled near the old home.
After years of struggle and hardship he passed away May 7, 1836, at his home
near Bunceton. His descendants are scattered throughout the entire west and are
very numerous, for he was the father of twelve children by his first wife. One
of these was Joseph Lee, the father of Lon V. Stephens, ex-governor of Missouri,
and another son was Speed Stephens, president of the Bank of Bunceton. By his
second wife, Catharine Dickson, there were nine children, as follows: John D.,
George D., Andrew J., Thomas H. B., Margaret, Alpha, Harriet, Isabella and Lee Ann.

    John Dickson Stephens was born near Bunceton, Mo., September 23, 1826, and
was the eldest son of his father's second marriage. When he was a boy public
educational institutions had not been introduced, but he had excellent
advantages in private schools and was well qualified to teach. His first source
of income came as a teacher from 1844 to 1846. At the opening of the war with
Mexico he volunteered in the service, was assigned to a regiment and marched to
the front, but his company saw no active service, the war having been brought to
a successful issue. When all hope of military service had to be abandoned he
turned to the study of medicine, and it is probable that he would have been a
lifelong practitioner in Missouri had not the discovery of gold in California
turned his thoughts toward the then unknown west.

    Together with a brother and various of their acquaintances John D. Stephens
sought fortune in the mines, but he met with so little success that he began to
investigate other means of earning a livelihood. From Sacramento he traveled
through Yolo county, then an unsettled region whose possibilities had not
attracted attention from the emigrants. With keen discernment he decided that
there was a chance for a struggling easterner in this county and accordingly he
took up raw land and engaged in ranching. It is said that he was the first to
successfully raise grain here. In addition he was a pioneer in introducing
high-grade stock. For years his sheep won prizes at the state fairs and county
exhibitions. In the raising of mules and horses, Durham cattle and Poland-China
hogs, he was equally successful, the only drawback to material prosperity being
the lack of adequate marketing facilities, also the shortage of water. The
latter impediment, however, was overcome through his organization in 1863 of the
Capay Ditch Company, which built a reservoir for storing the waters of the Cache
creek canyon and thereby irrigating the plains below.

    Various mining ventures, one of which brought him excellent returns from the
Comstock lodge in Nevada, enabled Mr. Stephens in 1867 to return to Yolo county
with increased finances for investments. Shortly afterward he formed an alliance
with various moneyed men of Yolo county and financed the organization in 1868 of
the Bank of Woodland, the first bank here, of which solid and substantial
institution he became the first, and remained the only president until his
death. Notwithstanding panics and depressions the bank never lost the confidence
of depositors, never refused to meet an obligation and never betrayed the trust
of even the humblest individual. Its record was unimpeachable, its investments
conservative, its policy cautious yet progressive and its results certain and
satisfactory, for which condition the stockholders gave the credit to the
founder and president of the institution. He organized the Woodland gas works
and managed it for many years. It was he, too, who started the water works of
Woodland and was at the helm until it was sold to the city.

    The marriage of Mr. Stephens and Mary F. Alexander was solemnized at
Bellair, Cooper county, Mo., January 4, 1854, and thus began a union of mutual
helpfulness and happiness. During the colonial era the Alexander family had
crossed the ocean from Scotland to Virginia and had gained prominence in the Old
Dominion, where the historic town of Alexandria was named for her grandfather.
Later the family became established in Kentucky, where she was born. Of her
three children the only survivor is Kate, wife of Hon. Joseph Craig, of
Woodland. The children were born in an adobe house one and one-half miles west
of Madison, Yolo county, the old homestead of the family, but later occupied by
the family of the brother, George Dickson Stephens, who enlarged the original
house that had been constructed by Indians in the old Californian style of
architecture. In his marriage Mr. Stephens was most fortunate, for his wife
possessed many superior qualities of mind and heart, exhibited an unfailing
gentleness under all circumstances, and found in her home a vivid satisfaction
that enabled her to radiate its happiness among her wide circle of friends. She
survived her husband several years and died in Fulton, Mo., in 1906.

    No record of the life of the late Mr. Stephens would be complete without
mention of his prominence in Masonry. He was made a Mason in Cacheville Lodge,
at old Cacheville, and later was identified with Woodland Lodge No. 156, F. & A.
M., and from that time he was one of its most popular members. August 16, 1859,
he was initiated into the Sacramento Chapter of the Royal Arch degree and when
Woodland Chapter No. 46 was organized he became one of its charter members April
9, 1873. He was created a Knight Templar and a Knight of Malta at Sacramento. On
January 13, 1883, he with others instituted the Woodland Commandery No. 21 under
dispensation. In this commandery he was honored with official responsibilities,
and December 10, 1887, was chosen eminent commander. The philanthropic and
brotherly principles of the order he exemplified by precept and action; its
ministrations and services remained to him not only an ideal of duty, but also a
source of comfort to his benevolent temperament. As one of those citizens whose
pioneer services were of incalculable value, whose being thrilled with patriotic
devotion to the county, whose loyalty to the community remained undiminished to
the end and whose intellect was ever at the service of the home of his adoption,
his name is worthy of perpetuation in the annals of the county.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

HISTORY OF YOLO COUNTY CALIFORNIA
WITH
Biographical Sketches
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been Identified With Its Growth
and Development From the Early Days to the Present

HISTORY BY
TOM GREGORY
AND OTHER WELL KNOWN WRITERS
ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME

HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA [1913]

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