Sacramento County
Biographies
ANDREW J. STEVENS
A. J. STEVENS,
deceased. Thanksgiving day, 1889, a large and respectful assembly of the
citizens of Sacramento and vicinity were present on the plaza to witness the
unveiling of a magnificent monument erected to the memory of this truly great
man, who had been master mechanic at the Sacramento railroad shops for many
years. Like many others, he was greater in merit than in notoriety. In fact, he
was probably a greater favorite among the employés and his fellow laborers than
any noted man could be. The signal traits of his character were loyalty to his
calling and profound respect for the man who achieves by virtue of devotion to
the branch of labor in which he is engaged. Himself a prolific inventor, he was
the counselor and kind adviser of all the others engaged in mechanical
research, and labored to lighten human toil. He abhorred the sluggard and the
idle man. By his life and example he encouraged every toiler, by his genius he
evolved and brought to the forge and bench and the workshop, the appliances
that most augment the capacity of the worker to produce without increasing the
burdens of his toil. A governor over thousands of men for a long term of years,
he commanded from all of them the regard that true worth and manliness always
receive. While it was his duty to conserve every interest of his employers, he
never lost sight of the human rights of the men employed. He held the balance
evenly between forces sometimes driven to antagonism in the fields of labor. He
was a disciplinarian without the severity of the exacting master; he was a
master without the austerity of the mere disciplinarian. He believed that men
are more easily led than driven, and that they respect the authority that
deserves it. All his principals and those who served under him mingled their
mourning in common over his remains, and it was they who consistently incurred
the expense of a $5,000 monument and statue sacred to his memory. Mr. Stevens
died February 11, 1888, leaving a widow in this city; and the Stevens Statue
Association was organized July 11 following, at a meeting of the employés of
the railroad company held at the old Pavilion. The granite work of the monument
was done by the Carlaw Brothers of Sacramento; the stone was from the quarries
of Fresno and Rocklin; the statue, of bronze and nine feet high, was designed
by Albert Weiner of San Francisco. At the unveiling, the statue was presented
to the city by E. B. Hussey, president of the association, and was accepted by
Hon. E. J. Gregory, Mayor, in behalf of the city. Nearly all the fraternal
orders of the city and most of the employés of the railroad company turned out
in grand parade. Addresses were delivered by President Hussey, Hon. Joseph
Steffens, Mayor Gregory, Governor Waterman and William H. Mills, and a eulogy
was read which had been composed for the occasion by Ralph Turner.
Transcribed by Vicky
Walker, 11/29/07.
Source: Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated
History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 797-798.
Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Vicky Walker.