Solano County Biographies

COLONEL A. M. STEVENSON

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 
who has been a resident of California since 1850 and of Solano County during 
most of that time, was born in Versailles, Woodford County, Kentucky, in 1821.  
His parents were William and Jane (Muldrow) Stevenson, his father a native of 
Maryland and his mother of Virginia; their parents moved into Kentucky during 
its earliest period of settlement.  Colonel Stevenson�s grandfather fought for 
the independence of this country in the Revolutionary war, and his father was a 
soldier in the war of 1812.  
            At the age of about twenty years Colonel Stevenson was employed in 
the office of the clerk of the Circuit Court, where he learned many valuable 
lessons for life.  Next he engaged in mercantile business, in which he continued 
until the breaking out of the Mexican war, when he enlisted in the First 
Regiment of Kentucky Cavalry, under Colonel Humphrey Marshall, his immediate 
commander being Captain Thomas F. Marshall.  Colonel Marshall, by the way, 
afterward became prominent as a politician and as a Confederate commander during 
the late civil war.  Going to Mexico with his command, he was appointed 
Quartermaster with the rank of Colonel, which position he held until the close 
of the war, participating in the battle of Buena Vista and a number of 
skirmishes.  After the war he resided in Kentucky until the great gold 
excitement of this State took the world, when he came hither by the way of New 
Orleans and Panama, reaching the golden coast in the early part of April, 1850.  
After a few weeks spent in the mining regions, he went to Sacramento and began 
as a trader in live-stock, becoming one of a stock company who purchased horses, 
cattle and sheep from the immigrants, and sent many of them down to the Vaca 
Valley to fatten; and they also bought and imported horses, cattle and sheep 
from the East.  G. B. Stevenson, one member of the company, brought out in 1851 
2,000 sheep from Illinois in one season, costing him about $1.25 a head in 
Illinois, and he sold them here on an average of $10 a head, while the rams 
brought as high as $50.
            In 1853 Colonel Stevenson returned to the East by way of Panama and 
New York, visiting on the way his former home in Kentucky.  On that trip he 
purchased, in his native State, a number of blooded horses, and in Missouri and 
Illinois he bought also a lot of fine cattle, all of which he brought 
successfully across the plains to this State, in 1854.  This company purchased a 
large extent of land and cattle, continuing in these operations until about 
1860, when they dissolved and divided the profits.  Colonel Stevenson continued 
in the same line of trade until about 1870, when he organized the Vaca Valley & 
Clear Lake Railroad Company, who built the line from Elmira to Madison and 
managed it until July, 1888, when they sold it to the Southern Pacific Railroad 
Company; and since that time the Colonel has been operating with the latter 
company in looking after its land interests along this line.  He has twice 
represented Solano in the State Legislature; is a member of Vacaville Lodge, No. 
83, I.O.O.F.
            In 1857 Colonel Stevenson married Miss M. E. Gardner, a native of 
Arkansas, and they now have six children:  Jennie, now the wife of Doctor J. W. 
Stitt, of Vacaville; Annie E., now the wife of Frank H. Buck, of Vaca Valley; 
Mary Lou, now Mrs. Henry Heilbron, of Sacramento; Leila and Mabel, graduates of 
Vacaville College; and Andrew M., at present attending the same institution.
 
Memorial & Biographical History of Northern California, The Lewis Publishing 
Co., 1891, pp 517-518