John Cox Stevens
John Cox Stevens ( September 24, 1785 - June 13, 1857 ) was an American businessman and sailor . He is best known as the founder and first Commodore of the New York Yacht Club (NYYC) and co-sailing owner of the Yacht America , which in 1851 beat the British yachts in a race around the island off the Isle of Wight . Yacht America won the One Hundred Sovereigns Cup and gave its name to the oldest sailing regatta that is still held today , the America's Cup .
John Cox Stevens was the eldest son of the influential Stevens family. His father, the engineer John Stevens , was veteran in the Revolutionary War , pioneer of steam navigation and buyers of the lands that the origin of today's Hoboken in New Jersey form. His mother Rachel Cox was from New Brunswick . His brother Robert Livingston Stevens worked as a businessman and, like his father, as an engineer and designer. His brother Edwin Augustus Stevens founded by Testament the Stevens Institute of Technology , the fourth oldest technical university in America, and was in the 1860s also Commodore of NYCC.
John Cox Stevens graduated from Columbia University , which he left in 1803. On December 27, 1809, he married Maria C. Livingston. Stevens was the owner and president of the ferry company that operated the first steamship ferry between Hoboken and New York City . Out of enthusiasm for steamships, he ran a shipyard in Hoboken. As the sportiest member of the family, he developed a great passion for sailing and built a number of yachts . On board his yacht Gimcrack , he was appointed Commodore of the New York Yacht Club in 1844, which he had previously founded together with eight other men. With the team of his schooner yacht America he won the One Hundred Sovereigns Cup in 1851 . On his return to New York, John Stevens donated the One Hundred Sovereigns Cup to the New York Yacht Club and with this award founded the America's Cup , which was first held off New York in 1870 between the yachts Magic (USA) and Gambria (Great Britain) ( Winner: Magic ). In 1994, Stevens was inducted into the America's Cup Hall of Fame . Stevens introduced cricket in the United States.
Horse racing
Stevens was also a member of New York's oldest gentlemen's club, The Union Club . As president of the Union Course jockey club , he hosted the famous north-south race in 1823, won by the English thoroughbred American Eclipse (named after the famous racehorse Eclipse ) from the north against Lady Lightfoot from the south. The race stoked tensions between the northern and southern states , because the victory sparked a great enthusiasm for equestrian sport in the north and disgraced the south in its claim to be superior in the breeding and training of racehorses .
See also
- for Stevens ancestors see ancestors in the article about his brother Edwin Augustus
Individual evidence
- ^ Herreshoff Marine Museum, Americas Cup Hall of Fame
- ^ Stevens Institute of Technology, History ( Memento August 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ America's Cup: AC-CLOPAEDIA - TIMELINE ( January 14, 2009 memento in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved January 24, 2009
- ↑ America's Cup Acclopaedia ( Memento of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ American Eclipse
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stevens, John Cox |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American businessman and sailor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 24, 1785 |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 13, 1857 |