Sewell, Stephen

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE:   F. Murray Greenwood, “SEWELL (Sewall), STEPHEN,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 6, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/sewell_stephen_6E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Lawyer, landowner, militia officer, office holder, and politician; b. c. 25 May 1770 in Cambridge, Mass., son of Jonathan Sewell (Sewall) and Esther Quincy; m. 18 June 1801 Jane Caldwell in Montreal, and they had at least six children; d. there 21 June 1832.
    • The younger son of a prominent loyalist who was the last British attorney general of Massachusetts, Stephen Sewall was only five when his family emigrated to England at the beginning of the War of American Independence. In 1778 the Sewalls – the name was at some point changed to Sewell – settled in Bristol, where Stephen attended grammar school and at home absorbed his parents’ fear of democracy and their fervent desire that he and his elder brother, Jonathan, recoup what the family had lost in America.
    • In 1787 Stephen and his parents recrossed the ocean to join Jonathan, who had earlier immigrated to Saint John, N.B. Stephen followed his brother into the legal office of Ward Chipman, and was called to the New Brunswick bar in 1791. Like Jonathan before him, he decided – later that year – to seek his fortune in the larger colony of Lower Canada, whose governor was Lord Dorchester, patron of the loyalists. This decision evinced a permanent character trait: the desire to model his career after that of his elder brother.
    • Sewell’s longstanding efforts, and those of his brother, who became chief justice in 1808, succeeded the following year when he was named by Governor Craig as solicitor general of Lower Canada; the office was worth about £1,700 a year in salary and fees. In November 1809 Sewell won a seat in the House of Assembly for Huntingdon County.
  • Son of proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=7461
  • Find A Grave : https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/196406847/stephen-sewell