John Austin Stevens (banker)
John Austin Stevens, Sr. (January 22, 1795 – October 19, 1874) was an American banker and merchant from New York City. He was the son of Revolutionary War general Ebenezer Stevens and the father of John Austin Stevens, founder of the Sons of the Revolution.
Stevens was born in New York City, the youngest of four sons of Ebenezer Stevens and Lucretia Ledyard Stevens. His brother Alexander Hodgdon Stevens became a surgeon and served as president of the American Medical Association in 1848–1849. He graduated from Yale University in 1813, where he belonged to Brothers in Unity and the Linonian Society.
After college, Stevens joined his father’s mercantile business in 1818. He served many years as secretary of the New York Chamber of Commerce, helped organize and became the first president of the Merchants’ Exchange, and was president of the Bank of Commerce from 1839 to 1866. A Whig in politics, he supported low tariffs. In 1861, as head of the treasury note committee, he chaired a bankers’ group from New York, Boston, and Philadelphia that funded the Civil War, arranging terms for the government loan and directing substantial additional advances. He was often consulted by the U.S. Treasury during the Civil War.
Stevens also contributed to public life, serving for many years as a governor of the New York Hospital and supporting other benevolent institutions. He married Abigail Perkins Weld in 1824, and they had children, including John Austin Stevens Jr. He died in New York City on October 19, 1874.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 23:27 (CET).