John Stevens (New Jersey politician)
Continental Congressman from New Jersey (1716-1792)
John Stevens Jr. (c. 1715 – May 10, 1792) was a prominent colonial American landowner, merchant, and politician.
Early life
Stevens was born in 1715 at Perth Amboy in the Province of New Jersey in what was then British America. 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.
Career
With his brother Richard, he owned mercantile vessels and commanded them on voyages to Madeira and the Caribbean between 1739 and 1743. He then settled in Perth Amboy, where he was a vestryman at St. Peter's Church from 1749 to 1752. 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.
Colonial politics
Stevens was a member of the New Jersey General Assembly in 1751.
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