John Stevens (New Jersey politician)

[1] He was the son of John Stevens Sr., who came to America in 1699 at the age of 17 as an indentured clerk, and his wife Ann Campbell.

With his brother Richard, he owned mercantile vessels and commanded them on voyages to Madeira and the Caribbean between 1739 and 1743.

He was a large landowner in the New Jersey counties of Hunterdon, Union, and Somerset, and he owned a copper mine at Rocky Hill that was later abandoned.

[3] When the act went into effect in 1765, he was one of a committee of four (with Robert Livingston, John Cruger Jr., and Beverly Robinson) to prevent the issue of stamps in New York City.

[3] In 1770, he was appointed a commissioner, along with Walter Rutherfurd, to establish the partition line between New York and New Jersey.