From:
"History of Johnson County, Missouri", by Ewing Cockrell
Historical Publishing Company, Topeka - Cleveland, 1918
Copied by Martha C. Price, July 17, 1986
pp. 675, 676, 677

John T. Stevens, a prominent and successful farmer and stockman of Washington township, is one of Johnson County's most highly respected pioneers.  He was born in 1847 in Moniteau County, Missouri, son of Absalom and Elizabeth Stevens. Absalom Stevens was the son of David and Rebecca (McClanahan) Stevens.  David Stevens was born in New York, the son of Isaiah Stevens, who was killed while serving in the Revolutionary War with Washington's army.  David Stevens left New York in early maturity and located in Virginia on a plantation on the Roanoke River.  Here he was united in marriage with Rebecca McClanahan and to them was born Absalom, the father of the subject of this review, in 1811 in eastern Tennessee, where David and Rebecca Stevens had moved within a short time after their marriage.  David Stevens enlisted in the War of 1812 and served throughout the conflict.  In 1816, he moved with his family to Missouri and located permanently in what is now Moniteau County, where he engaged in farming becoming widely known as a capable, industrious, and highly esteemed citizen.  Absalom Stevens was reared to maturity on the homeplace in Moniteau County and was married in that county and there reared his family.  In 1863, he moved from Moniteau County to Johnson County, where he was a prominent and influential farmer.  His death occurred in 1898.
The boyhood days of John T. Stevens were spent as the average lad on the farm in those early times spent his days.  He assisted his father with the work on the homeplace and attended school, which was held in an old log house not far from their home in Moniteau County.  School lasted but a few months in the year and even when it was in session, the older boys and girls could not always go.  The majority of children in the old-time schools learned thoroughly that which they did learn, but few learned much.  The bright ones would learn rapidly, as the "master" heard them "say their lessons" as often as they wished, but the slow ones learned almost nothing.  Often children would go to school all that they could for several years and not be able to read and perhaps would be obligated to leave school to go to work before they had learned enough to read a simple story or write a letter.  John T. Stevens was sixteen years of age when his father moved to Johnson County.  The first teacher, whom he recalls having in the Johnson County schools, was Mr. Ball.  As a youth, Mr. Stevens often heard two of the earliest pioneer preachers:  Reverend George Langdon and Reverend  "Jimmie" Porter.
John T. Stevens was united in marriage with Mary C. Miller in 1873.  Mary C. (Miller) Stevens is the daughter of James Miller, a well-known pioneer of Missouri.  To John T. and Mary C. Stevens were born ten children: J. Robert, farmer, Washington township, Knob Noster, Missouri; Mrs. Stella Wright, Billings, Oklahoma; Jesse D., at home with his parents; Mrs. Lillie Conner, Knob Noster, Missouri; Mrs. Bettie Edmondson, Greenridge, Missouri; Mrs. Leamon, Redrock, Oklahoma; Mrs. Mary Lyle, Knob Noster, Missouri; Mrs. Beulah Dunham, Knob Noster, Missouri; Mrs. Maude Wheeler, Knob Noster, Missouri; and Della May, who died in childhood.
In 1863, John T. Stevens came to Johnson County with his father.  H recalls how excited he was when he heard in the distance the cannon at Boonville, Missouri.  There were but few settlers in this county in those early days and practically the entire county was open prairie.  Mr. Stevens has often broken sod, driving a yoke of oxen.  He has frequently seen, when a youth, herds of deer, flocks of wild turkeys, and thousands of prairie chickens in Johnson County.  With the coming of settlers, the wild game disappeared and the railroad, telegraph, telephone, and other modern inventions brought rapid changes to the new county, all of which Mr. Stevens has himself witnessed.  He is now the owner of four hundred three acres of find farm land, one hundred eighty acres of which were purchased by his father, Absalom Stevens, when he came to Johnson County more than fifty years ago.  Mr. Stevens has one hundred fifty acres of land in pasture and devotes much of his time and attention to stock raising.
Mr. Stevens relates that one of the colony of settlers, with whom the Stevens family came to Missouri, brought with him a "mill stone" and with it erected a mill at a large spring, which they discovered in Moniteau County, -- an old fashioned water mill.  At the same place, there was later erected a cotton gin.