Stevens, Abel

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Curtis Fahey, “STEVENS, ABEL,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 6, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/stevens_abel_6E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Colonizer and Baptist preacher; b. in Pittsford (Vt), son of Roger Stevens and Mary Doolittle; m. 1779 Eunice Buck of Pittsford, and they had at least ten children; d. in 1825 or 1826, probably in Steventown (near Delta), Upper Canada.
    • Abel Stevens’s early life was closely intertwined with the exploits of his elder brother Roger. Shortly after the outbreak of the American revolution Roger Stevens, a large landowner in Pittsford, aroused the wrath of local rebels by refusing to renounce his allegiance to the crown – an act of defiance that led to his arrest and imprisonment and the confiscation of his property. Somehow managing to escape, Roger gained employment as a guide for a brigade of German troops serving under Major-General John Burgoyne. Imprisoned again after Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga (near Schuylerville, N.Y.) in October 1777, Roger engineered a second escape with the assistance of his brother Abel, then farming in the Pittsford area and known chiefly as a skilful hunter and courageous Indian-fighter.
    • In 1781 Roger was a spy for British troops stationed in Vermont, and Abel frequently assisted him in the collection of military and political intelligence. From 1782 until the end of the war Abel, described by Roger as “a loyal Man and entirely unsuspected among the Rebels,” travelled widely throughout the New England area gathering information that was later relayed to his brother at secret rendezvous points.
    • Following the revolution Roger Stevens lived in Montreal for a few years before settling along the Rideau River in 1788. Abel, however, remained in Vermont until 1792, when he and a few other Pittsford residents conceived the idea of establishing a settlement in the new colony of Upper Canada. After journeying there in May 1793, he made a number of applications for land: one requested a township grant for himself and five associates; another asked for a grant of 30,000 acres along the Thames River for the purpose of creating a “Baptist society” under the British flag.
    • Although neither application was accepted, Stevens received 200 acres for himself and for each of his children, along with a verbal promise of additional land for the families he might bring from Vermont. For some reason, however, he was dissatisfied and, with the encouragement of Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, he began looking for a better site in the area to the east. Eventually he made his way to Leeds County, and there he applied to the local land board for a grant in Bastard Township. When his application was accepted he returned briefly to Vermont to recruit settlers. Shortly afterwards, in February 1794, he led six Baptist families back to Leeds County, where they immediately set to work laying the foundations of a community known, appropriately enough, as Steventown.
    • Stevens did useful work as a colonizer and promoter. By 1798, if his own testimony is to be believed, he had persuaded more than 200 Vermont Baptists to settle in the townships of Bastard and Kitley. As well, in the late 1790s he played a leading role in the construction of an 18-mile road from Gananoque to Kingston, and from 1794 until the early 1800s he was closely connected with plans to build a foundry which would process the Gananoque area’s rich resources of bog iron.
  • United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=8044
  • Find A Grave : https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/42407564/abel-stevens