vans, that early American mechanic of great genius, whose
story is briefly outlined in a preceding chapter. Here was a man of
imagination and sensibility, as well as practical power; conferring
great benefits on his countrymen, yet in chronic poverty; derided by his
neighbors, robbed by his beneficiaries; his property, the fruit of his
brain and toil, in the end malevolently destroyed. The lot of the man
who sees far ahead of his time, and endeavors to lead his fellows in
ways for which they are not prepared, has always been hard.

John Stevens, too, as we have seen, met defeat when he tried to thrust
a steam railroad on a country that was not yet ready for it. His
mechanical conceptions were not marked by genius equal to that of
Evans, but they were still too far advanced to be popular. The career
of Stevens, however, presents a remarkable contrast to that of Evans
in other respects. Evans was born poor (in Delaware, 1755) and remained
poor all his life. Stevens was born rich (in New York City, 1749) and
remained rich all his life. Of the family of Evans nothing is known
either before or after him. Stevens, on the contrary, belonged to one of
the best known and most powerful families in America. His grandfather,
John Stevens I, came from England in 1699 and made himself a lawyer and
a great landowner. His father, John Stevens II, was a member from
New Jersey of the Continental Congress and presided at the New Jersey
Convention which ratified the Constitution.

John Stevens III was graduated at King's College (Columbia) in 1768. He
held public offices during the Revolution. To him, perhaps more than
to any other man, is due the Patent Act of 1790, for the protection of
American inventors, for that law was the result of a petition which he
made to Congress and which, being referred to a committee, was favorably
reported. Thus we may regard John Stevens as the father of the American
patent law.

John Stevens owned the old Dutch farm on the Hudson on which the city
of Hoboken now stands. The place had been in possession of the
Bayard family, but William Bayard, who lived there at the time of the
Revolution, was a Loyalist, and his house on Castle Point was burned
down and his estate confiscated. After the Revolution Stevens acquired
the property. He laid it out as a town in 1804, made it his summer
residence, and established there the machine shops in which he and his
sons carried on their mechanical experiments.

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